Lessons from the Fish Bowl

As the saying goes, things happen when you least expect it. Like getting a pet. Not that I am anti-pet, it’s just that I haven’t felt psychologically ready for one since I gave birth six years ago to my oldest daughter. Whenever my kids ask for a bunny or dog, I always reply, “When we move to the farm.” We don’t own a farm or have any plans of moving to one, but it always seems like a perfectly sensible answer.

When we went to the Boo Blast, a Halloween carnival at a local elementary school, the thought of getting a pet never crossed my mind. We were there to ride the rides, play games and eat junk food. One of the first stands we hit was the toss-the-ping-pong-ball-into-the-fish-bowl and win a fish. My kids excitedly asked for tickets. After a few mathematical calculations of the bowl’s opening, I concluded that they would never win and handed over the tickets.

“What happened?” I exclaimed when my daughters returned with a cup full of fish.

“We won goldfish,” my eldest informed me. “Everyone wins.”

Turns out my friend Stacy and I were the last to know that anyone who hands over a ticket wins fish. That is why my friend Lisa always says ‘no’ to the goldfish stand or another friend, who wishes to remain anonymous, flushes them down the toilet.

I saw this for what it was--a golden opportunity for a ‘teaching moment’ with my kids as they learned about life and death via some goldfish. I suddenly felt ill. I turned to Stacy whose daughters also had fish in hand. “What are we supposed to do now?”

“I don’t know,” she said, bewildered as me. “I guess we buy a bowl.”

After sloshing and slinging the fish around the fair for another hour, we headed home to introduce them to their new residence. I was feeling panicked about how I was going to buy the bowl and fish food. My youngest daughter was on the edge of a mega meltdown that would not be fit for public consumption in our local Target. Fortunately, a pet store miraculously appeared on the way home with a savior of a salesclerk, Kelly, who organized us with the appropriate fish gear and sent us on our merry way.

My husband, who never had pets as a kid, hopped on board the goldfish wagon and helped me get the fish settled into their bowl. My daughters named them Kelly Bubbles, Bubbles, Roxy and Chloe. The origins of these names were, of course, the pet store and those wretched Bratz dolls.

The fish became our new television as we would sit and watch them eat, swim and poop. I knew that any day now I would turn into Geena Davis in Stuart Little and start buying our fish clothes and toys for their play dates. That was until this Sunday when my husband alerted me to the breaking news. “We have a dead fish.” So, began the teaching moment.

When my oldest daughter woke up from an afternoon nap, we told her about the death of Chloe, the orange fish named after the blonde Bratz doll. Tears flowed as I tried to explain that Chloe had been sick or perhaps old and that it was time for her to go to fish heaven.

“I bet she’s eating fishy ice cream and fishy chocolate right now with her fishy friends,” I suggested.

“Then I want my fish to die too,” my four year old added. I realized maybe I wasn’t doing such a good job at explaining what had happened. I decided to focus on the ritual of saying good-bye.

“Where would you like to bury Chloe?” I asked.

My husband helpfully suggested, “Why don’t we feed her to the cat next door.” This sent my daughter into absolute hysterics as she abandoned all thoughts of the fishy ice cream party.

After calming down, she decided on a burial spot outside our front door. My husband dug a hole and we held a small ceremony, marking the area with a picture of Chloe inscribed with ‘I love you,’

“Nobody lives forever,” my youngest shared. “I think we are going to live at least one hundred more days.”

“I sure hope so,” my husband replied. I gave her a big hug and snuck off to the kitchen for some chocolate of my own. Another teaching moment had passed and as usual, I had learned the most about what it means to be alive.