Sleeps With Fishes

Here's another peek at my manuscript, D-I-Y Spells DIE, and Other Domestic Epiphanies. Artwork by my firstborn.

Wanda died two days after we brought her home. Or maybe it was one day. It took me a while to be certain, since she was nestled among the stems of an aquatic plant which prevented her from floating belly-up to the surface of the goldfish bowl. I was pretty sure it wasn’t normal for her to be pointed head-down for so long, but her tail and fins would waft gently in the current of the air filter, and I thought it was possible she was resting, or just disoriented.

The morning of Day Three, I reached in and gave the leaves a little shake. Wanda promptly fell upwards and assumed the definitive position. I called my husband at work with the sad news.

His preference for disposal of the remains was a private flushing at home. Less said, the better, was his philosophy as far as the children were concerned.

“Let’s not make a big production of this,” he suggested, in the rich blended tone of foresight and futility that comes only with years of marriage.

“What are you talking about?” I said, with feeling. “Of course, we’re having a ceremony. We have to have a funeral—this is how children learn to deal with death. This,” I declared with hyperbole, “is why you have small pets.” Moved by my own case, I began to sing the chorus from “The Circle of Life,” but he had already hung-up.

Men don’t know how to deal with their grief, I thought sadly, scooping Wanda into a plastic baggie and stashing her temporarily in the vegetable crisper. They’d rather just flush and deny.

I was determined it would be different for my boys. When they padded downstairs I gave it to them straight: Wanda hadn’t made it; she had died. They were mildly curious. Where was she now, they wanted to know, inspecting the goldfish bowl. I explained that while her body was lying in state in the refrigerator, her spirit was surely swimming with God.

Several days later, after Saturday morning cartoons, I announced it was time for the funeral. Someone would have to dig a hole. My six-year-old was enthusiastic about this part, excavating a large hole in the lawn beneath our lovely Japanese maple. He also helped me bind two popsicle sticks together with kitchen twine for a cross,

“Wanda,” I read aloud, inscribing the grave marker with a permanent felt-tip pen, “2005.”

I capped the pen. “Now it’s time to get Wanda.”

At this point, my six-year-old lost muster, and looking askance, said he’d rather go back inside and watch television, thank you. I praised his abilities as a sexton and let him go. His four-year-old brother, who during the digging and construction phase had been gathering dandelions for a memorial spray, followed me raptly to the refrigerator to see what would happen next.

The deceased was holding up rather well, considering. I lifted the baggie out, and we observed her in silence for a moment, before proceeding on our way to the front yard as pallbearers.

Under the canopy of red maple leaves, I unzipped the bag and poured Wanda into her final resting place. My son helped shovel dirt over the grave with a small garden trowel, and laid his bouquet of yellow flowers at the base of the cross. I turned to the prayer I had chosen from the board book edition of A Child’s Book of Prayers.

“Dear Father, please hear and bless thy beasts and singing birds,” I read. “And guard with special tenderness small things that have no words. Amen.”

I closed the prayer book and smiled serenely at my son, lesson accomplished. I was not prepared to see his fathomless blue eyes brimming with tears. His small shoulders sagged as he collapsed against my leg, sobbing.

“Oh, sweetheart,” I exclaimed, falling to my knees to comfort him. I was horrified. What kind of sick, morbid sadist was I, anyway? How many years of therapy would it take to recover from a mother who interrupts Saturday morning cartoons to make you carry your cold, dead pet to the front yard and shovel dirt onto it? My husband was right—I carry things too far.

As usual, I had at arrived at one extreme by way of a non-stop flight from another. Earlier in my career as mother, I took pains to avoid a direct discussion of mortality with my kids. They had just arrived here, after all. Why spoil all the fun right away with the dark and terrible truth?

I thought it was better to let them down gently. Whenever possible, I evaded the subject.

“Mommy, where do chicken nuggets come from? ”

“The grocery store, darling. Ketchup?”

Or I euphemized. “That bird left his body here and went to fly in heaven,” I’d say, as we paused over a feathered corpse lying in the gutter.

My illusion that I could or should shield them from life’s big spoiler ended abruptly one night as I was tucking my eldest son in bed. I was telling him a story about his grandfather, who had passed away while he was still a toddler.

“Where is Poppy?” my son asked pointedly.

I smiled sadly. “He went to live with God, baby.”

My son propped his head up and looked at me with a kind, but resolute expression, like a psychotherapist about to get down to business. He touched my arm.

“Do you mean he’s dead, Mom?” he asked, gently.

See, in my Momnipotence, I forget sometimes that my kids came fully assembled. I don’t need to do anything to activate their humanity. They’ve got it. They get it. The script for life and death, grief and joy is written on their DNA. I fool myself into thinking I’m the auteur of their childhood, when in reality, I merely work in the props department.

The universe has found it necessary to remind me of this early and often. I remember fixating on my first newborn’s tiny ears, whorled like the inside of a conch, pearly pink and golden. Tracing them lightly with my finger, I would marvel in silence over their intricacy. Like everything else about him, they were miraculous to me. And humbling. I can’t draw an ear, much less take credit for making one.

As I knelt in the dirt around Wanda’s grave, my weeping child clasped to my chest, I felt that sense of wonder and humility. My son knew his part. Not in my little production, but in the theatre of life. His mourning was both authentic and appropriate, and all that was required of me was to honor it.

“Let’s have some juice,” I suggested, brushing his sandy brown hair from his eyes. We walked up the steps to the front porch and sat at the boys’ little table. I brought out the whole jug of orange juice and two plastic tumblers. I thought we could both use a drink.

“To Wanda,” I said, raising my glass.

To life, I thought. The bitter and the sweet.