joe randel's art dump

The other day one of my daughters fish passed away.  We knew it was going to happen as he’s been hanging around the bottom of the tank for a while now and not swimming much.  Then not swimming at all.  We told my daughter that Piggy Fish (that’s what his/her name was… because he/she usually ate most of the food) was looking kind of sick and that he might die soon.  She under stood but hoped that he/she would get better.

The day the fish passed was a hard one, she’s never had to deal with the passing of anything.  We later talked about death, that it’s okay to die, it’s okay to be sad and that every body passes someday.  I bought a book a year ago or so called One More Wednesday that deals with death.  It’s about a little bunny boy that goes to see his Granny every Wednesday.  They bake cookies and play games but then one day the bunny boy can’t go to his Granny’s anymore.  We get to read about his questions about death and it helps make the situation a bit softer.

She asked what was going to happen to Piggy now.  We told her that I was going to bury him by the gathering of trees in the front of our house.  She asked if she could be there and if all her stuffed friends could be there too.  I said sure.  I made a small box for Piggy Fish and we decorated with stickers and drawings.  She was very happy with it ^_^  We buried Piggy between two trees in our front yard and mark his/her spot with a large pink rock.  She wrote Piggy Fish on it with a marker. ^_^

My daughter is doing better now.  She asked if we could get another fish to keep the Scaredy Fish (that’s the name of the other one) company.  So now we have Big Ed the fish.  She still talks about Piggy Fish and misses him but I believe this was a very healthy experience for her.  It’s good for her to understand these things now in her own little 5 year old way.

Yeah… that was a sad day.  But if I was able to get over me losing my Pheobe Beagle, then she’ll be just fine ^_^

Note:  I’ll be gone for the weekend so no posts until Monday ^_^