Goodbye, Flower

In the midst of everything else that has been happening lately, one of our fish died last week. I knew it was coming. She (he?) had been swimming really funny for the days leading up to her (his?) death. I knew something was wrong. We're talking about a $4 goldfish here, but my first instinct was to try to take her to the vet. (And yes, I know that even if vets took goldfish, which Dean assured me they do not, it wouldn't be worth the cost of a vet visit to save a $4 goldfish). Instead, Dean changed the water, thinking that maybe that would help. And we read in our fish book and diagnosed her with stuff, but it wasn't as if we could do anything to treat her. [Incidentally, Luna, one of our other fish, had some sort of disease that caused her to lose most of her fins. We gave her medicine, and the fin rot stopped, but her fins have not grown back.] Flower passed quietly into fish heaven last Wednesday.

Now, I know that some parents would try to replace the fish without the kids knowing to spare them from the reality of death. I did not do this. First of all, my grandma died in June, so it's not a secret to Ella and Sadie that death is a part of life. The wake was an open casket and both girls saw my grandma lying there (against my better judgment, but there was no way to avoid them noticing). Then there has been all this business with my brother (last night Ella was pretending to have only one leg, which seemed a bit callous to me at first until I realized that it wasn't so much that she was making fun of Uncle Mike as that she was trying to work it all out in her mind). So the fish? Yeah, there was no way I was going to pretend THAT hadn't happened. I told Ella and Sadie about Flower, and Ella said, "Well, pets don't live as long as people." And that was that. Since then, both girls have been very focused on HOW exactly Flower got into heaven (blasted Catholic school!). I told them we'd flushed Flower down the toliet and that God had somehow gotten her (him?) from there. I mean, christ on a bicycle! I have no idea what to tell these guys. I'm not even sure that the Catholic church would say that a fish goes to heaven. I mean, the priest wouldn't even baptize my cousin when she was stillborn many years ago (because of all that original sin, which means, if you believe in all that stuff, that the baby will spend eternity in pergatory), so I am thinking no one is gonna let Flower go to heaven.

Last night Sadie asked me again: "Um, how did God take flower to heaven?" These theological questions are catching me off guard, and I feel like a bad parent since I have no good answers. I have 13 years of Catholic education. But I have trouble teaching my children the doctrine of a church that is pro life (I'm pro choice and don't think the church or the government should have a say over what I do with MY body) and preaches that homosexuality is a sin (I think gay people should be allowed to get married and don't think they're going to burn in hell just because they happen to love a member of the same sex). Of course, I didn't have better answers at Christmas last year when Sadie asked me (keep in mind that she wasn't even TWO at this point) how Santa gets into the house. Sigh. So it's not only the religion stuff that's getting me. It's basically all of life. I guess the only option is to homeschool both of them and only allow them to know about things about which I have all the answers (which would be....nothing?). This mothering business is sort of tough.

Luckily, the girls seem to be young enough that they just use their best deductive reasoning to figure this all out. Sadie said something last night (in answer to her own question) about how God took Flower up to heaven after she went down the toliet (which is, I guess, pretty close to what I told them last week, but I hadn't realized Sadie was listening). They also seem to be taking this latest tragedy in stride, though Ella will occassionally ask me if I miss Flower. The answer (to my utter amazement) is that yes, I do miss Flower. Rest in peace, girl (boy?).

The night after all of this happened, Ella came into our room in the middle of the night. I am VERY strict about the bedtime thing, so Ella doesn't leave bed unless she needs to go potty. She has never, ever come into our bedroom in the middle of the night and crawled into bed with us. She told me she'd had a bad dream. I was so tempted to let her stay, but I know how very quickly one night in bed with us would become two, etc., etc. And if there's one thing I can't compromise on, it's sleep. So I walked her back to her bed and tucked her in. (I'm not totally heartless, I should note, Ella wasn't really upset about the dream or about going back to her own bed.) Later, as I lay in my bed wide awake, I thought about my brother's accident and the death of the fish and decided it was no wonder Ella is having nightmares.

Of course, the next day, I found out she'd had a nightmare about a centipede. We get them around this time of year, and the girls had seen a HUGE one earlier that morning. It's kind of a funny story, actually. Sadie was eating breakfast and started freaking out about a spider on the floor. Dean checked, didn't see anything, and kept telling her there was no spider. Sadie continued to become hysterical, and I actually thought she was hallucinating or something. A few seconds later, the centipede dashed across the floor, and we realized that Sadie had, in fact, seen a "spider." We never did catch and kill the centipede, so he (she?) is still out there somewhere. Probably a good thing since I'm fairly certain centipedes do NOT go to heaven.