Bye Bye Blue

In July we celebrated Leland's 2'nd birthday, and at that time, he was still obsessed with "fishies", so we decided to buy him a pet fish. He named him Blue.

Every morning we would walk into the kitchen and I would say "Good morning, Blue." Then Leland would add, "Hi Blue. You hungry?" and we would feed blue and watch him nearly jump out of the water to get to his yummy blood worms.

And that was about all the interaction and interest that Leland showed in Blue.

Well, a few weeks ago, as I was trying to locate Blue in the tank to feed him, I found him curled up at the bottom of the tank. Uh-oh.

Leland was still asleep so I asked Justin how we wanted to handle this. After all, this was Leland's first pet. Were we going to rush to the pet store and grab a replacement so that Leland was none the wiser? Would we have an over the top funeral for Blue as we circled the toilet bowl? In the end, we decided to hurry and clean up all evidence that Blue ever existed, thinking that Leland would probably not even notice, as he really didn't show much interest in Blue anyway.

Oh heaven help me. The first words out of that little boy's mouth that day were, "Where's Blue?" I don't know that I have ever been truly sad over the death of a fish before, but that day I felt like my heart was going to break as I explained to my two year old that Blue went bye bye and was in heaven now. Those big eyes looking up at me, trying to comprehend what I was saying, almost tore me into two pieces.

Damn fish.

Leland asked about Blue several times that day, and each time I would try to explain to him what had happened in words he could understand.

We probably should have had the funeral.

That night we went to dinner at the Palmers. Leland solemnly walked up to his Grandpa Palmer and says, "Blue went bye bye..... (long pause).... but it's okay Grandpa." And then he got a much needed hug from his grandpa that hurt my heart even more.

My little guy has a sensitive soul. He cares about everyone. He is sad when other people are sad. He is worried when people get hurt. And he loves animals, all animals. Including Blue.

Rest in peace Blue. Thanks for being such a good first pet for such a sweet, tender-hearted little boy.