Mortality

When we got home this evening, I came into the house first to plug in my beeping phone. Alyssa was outside, enjoying a drive on the mower with Tom.

The first thing I noticed when I walked in the door was the fish, Lily, floating in her bowl.

This is the fish that Alyssa won at the county fair last year. She was almost a year old. I know, almost unheard of in county-fair fish, right?

I was saddened by her death, not because I was attached to Miss Fish but because I knew that Alyssa was going to be sad.

We wrapped Lily in a paper towel, Alyssa carried her outside and we buried her in our rock garden. Tom made a little stick cross to mark her 'grave.'

Alyssa was quite composed for about a half hour after the burial. Then she let herself be sad. I hugged her and told her it was okay to be sad. That I understood that she'd miss her fish and reminded her of the fun times she had with Lily. She enjoyed feeding Lily each day, waiting for Lils to come up and wait for the food flakes. She loved showing Lily off to her friends that visited.

I feel like this is a rite of passage. I also feel lucky that her first experience with death is that of a fish. It could be so much worse.

But when you're eight it's hard to lose anything you love, even a goldfish. So I let her cry. I held her and listened when she said she'd miss her fish.

There's a stray kitten that has shown up at my mom's house. He's gray and skinny and Alyssa adores him. She's asked every single day if we can bring him home. She's gone so far as to name him Pickles.

Tom and I agree that we really don't want a furry creature in the house.

This afternoon, on separate occasions, we reminded Alyssa that we live on a very busy road and that if Pickles were to live here, he'd very likely get hit by a car and killed.

She realized after we buried Lily that the death of a bigger, furrier pet would hurt even more than that of a fish. She's already bonded with that kitten. He purrs, he interacts with her. He returns the love she gives him, yes, the loss would be greater.

Pickles will remain at my mom's for the time being. If he can avoid Prissy, the queen cat at my mom's house. Prissy is supposedly Alyssa's cat too. She just lives at Gram's and Pawp's house. She's a big, brown, mean-to-other-cats cat. She loves Alyssa though.

So tomorrow, Alyssa may wake up sad again about the loss of Lily. But then she'll go to her gram's house and pet Prissy and Pickles and be soothed.

Mortality is a tough thing to accept. Even that of a goldfish.