We were in Alex's room to quickly grab a pair of shorts so he could go outside when I looked up and saw Uno laying on the bottom of his tank. I quietly told Alex that Uno was dead and he immediately asked what I meant. So I explained it again at which point he said we should fish him out and take him to the fish doctor because they were really good at fixing "died fish." I said that no, they couldn't fix him. I explained that once a pet was dead, there was nothing we could do to fix them; that it was just time to say good-bye. He seemed to understand but said that we should still fish Uno out to see what happened. And when I asked what he meant, he informed me that he thought Uno had eaten some of the fake grass in his tank and it got stuck in his tummy and that's why he died. I guess he thought if he could figure out why it happened it would make more sense to him? Whatever, we had to fish him out of the tank anyway.
So, I grabbed a bowl and got the fish out of the tank. Looking at Uno in the empty bowl is when Alex truly realized Uno was dead. I'm thinkin' the whole completely still fish in a container with zero water really drove the point home. He got a little sad and said he wanted to show Dad. So we did. And at the top of the stairs, he looked into the container again and got really really sad. As we sat there, him crying about the dead fish, me crying about him being so sad, he tearfully said, "It had only been a few days!!" Ummm...what had only been a few days? "It's only been a few days since I fed him and now he's dead...it's all my fault!!!" Oh boy. I explained that this was not his fault. That he and I both took care of Uno and that Uno was a very happy and well cared for fish, but that he just got old and when pets get really old, they die. And with that, Alex looked up at me with red eyes and tear stained cheeks and said, "Mom?...Is Aiden old?" Ho-ly shit.
So yeah, I wanted him to process this whole pet death thing and prepare him for the fact that Aiden will someday die, but damn, I wasn't expecting that mental processing time to be immediate. I told him that yes, Aiden was getting old and he just buried his face in my shoulder and cried. It was terrible.
After a while, Travis asked how Alex wanted to say good-bye to Uno...did he want to bury him or flush him? Alex decided a watery grave was most suitable, so he and I headed into the bathroom. And since I live with two gross boys, we opened the toilet lid to find the bowl already occupied with toilet paper and pee. Alex and I agreed that was not the way Uno should go out, so we flushed the toilet to have clean water for Uno. I asked Alex if he wanted me to put Uno in and flush him, and he said that he wanted me to put Uno in, but that he wanted to flush him. Closure I guess? So, I plopped Uno in the tank and after a brief pause, Alex pushed the handle down to send Uno to his final destination.
But...I didn't think about the fact that we had just flushed the toilet and we didn't wait for the tank to refill. So it wouldn't flush again. So, now I sat there with my sad son just standing over the toilet, watching his dead fish, who was now floating vertically, slowly pirouetting around the toilet bowl with the gentle current of the water refilling the bowl. It was awful. Finally the tank was filled and I let Alex know he could flush it. He said good-bye to Uno and flushed him. And then he collapsed in my lap crying. The final blow to my heart was when he started crying that it wasn't fair that Uno had to die.
We sat on the bathroom floor in a pile of hugs and tears for a while, but then gathered ourselves up to spend the rest of the evening with Travis and Sam. If this is how he reacts to the death of a fish he forgets about for days at a time, I am in no way prepared for the passing of Aiden. Shit, I'm not prepared to deal with my emotions on that dreadful day. How the hell am I going to deal with myself and support Alex?
While we were grieving on the bathroom floor, between sobs Alex asked me if we could get a new fish. In that moment, I would have promised that kid the whole ocean, so...
Please meet Bingo Zingo Fast:
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