R.I.P. Twiner

Grandma had bought Makaylee three pet fish for her birthday. They were her first 'real pets' and she was so delighted. Two of them were identical and she named them both "Twiners." (The larger fish, she named "Sally.") Yesterday, when we got back from swimming, Makaylee came sulking down the stairs with tears in her eyes. She reported, in a broken-hearted-way that "Twiner" had died.

Without realizing how cold hearted I sounded, I said: "I am sorry sweetheart, we probably should flush him down the toilet."

Her eyes got huge and she fired back: "NO! I am not going to flush Twiner! We need to bury him!"

"Uhhh, Okay. . . if you want to bury him, I guess we can bury him in the back yard."

She rushed over to our Tupperware, and grabbed a tiny little container. "You know how they bury people in boxes so that the dirt stays off of them? Let's bury Twiner in this box! "

The thought of innocently digging up the Tupperware at some random point in the future, while adjusting a sprinkler head popped into my mind -- and made me dry heave all at the same time. I quickly explained that when animals and plants die, they are buried in the dirt, and become part of the earth. This confused her, but luckily she put the Tupperware down.

We brought "Twiner" outside, dug a little hole, and buried him. She smoothed the dirt, picked at the rocks, and then decided to say a prayer for him. She said, "I am so thankful that I had Twiner for a pet. He was such a good fish, and I am going to miss him so much. . . Please help him to be happy in heaven, and please help him to be my pet again in heaven." By the time she said "Amen" we both had tears rolling down our cheeks.

After the prayer she declared, "We need to put a stone on the dirt."

I asked, "Oh, do you want to put a rock over him so that you can remember where you buried him?"

"No, Mom. I want to put one of those stones over him that you carve his name into." She wanted to make him a little headstone. Although we didn't have the tools necessary for inscribing on stone, she chose out the perfect rock anyway. She wrote him a sweet message in permanent marker, and there it sits, marking his grave site. . . Rest In Peace.