Death in the Family
We had a funeral yesterday. One of our goldfish died. In the evening, it looked like he/she was laying down taking a nap in the fake plant. Then after realizing that it really was not going to last too much longer, I separated him/her from the other two fish and watched him/her start to "breathe" slower and slower. I told the boys the fish would probably die soon. Daniel went to brush his teeth and said to the fish, "Bye fishie, have a nice die..." When the brushing of teeth was finished, Michael came in and said, "I think the fish is dead." Sure enough, he/she was a goner. So we said farewell to the fish and sent him/her down the toilet. (Because all drains lead to the ocean according to Nemo.) About a minute later, Michael is sobbing and he doesn't know why. I said I thought he was sad because of the fish. He said he thought so too. I replied that it was o.k. to be sad for the fish, but we really needed to be sad like that when something bad happened to people and not to fish, because we actually eat fish (well, not this one, but you get the picture). Recovery was pretty smooth, but the bedtime story had to be edited a little. It was Mickey's Christmas Carol (Daniel chose it) and in this version Tiny Tim didn't die during the Spirit-of-Christmas-Yet-To-Come's visit. But we did have a fun conversation about how the fish could not come back to life in the ocean and that Jesus was the only one who could do that (and I know of more in the Bible, i.e. Lazarus, but that's another day).