I Am Pathetic…

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  This morning, I went into Seth's room to get his school work set up for the day. While I was at it, I thought I'd check on the fish. There was Bobby… swimming. There was Larry… swimming. And there was Gordon… floating at the top of the tank.

  So I started thinking… Seth, although highly intelligent, is not always the most observant child. I wondered… briefly… if I could get away with simply removing Gordon from the tank… flushing him… and waiting to see how long it would take Seth to realize he only had two fish. I probably could have gotten away with it… especially realizing that Seth had fed the fish less than an hour earlier, and Gordon was probably already dead.

  At any rate, I decided that wasn't the best way to handle things. Having few other creative ideas, I did the only reasonable thing… I called Phil and left a message on his voice mail.

  When Phil called me back, we decided I had better tell Seth about his fish and then get the thing out of the aquarium. So, that's what I did…

  Seth's reaction was only slightly sad, and he insisted that he wanted to see Gordon (since he'd never seen him that way (dead) before), and that he wanted to be a part of flushing him, too. Of course, Grace and Caleb were now quite interested, as well. So… I let them all see the fish. Then I scooped Gordon out with the net while Seth said, "that fish won't be flapping around", and we made our way to the bathroom. Seth did the flushing, I closed the lid, and I thought that was that.

  The next notable comment of the day came from Grace, who said, "Caleb, did you know that Gordon the fish died and we flushed him in the potty. Isn't that funny?" Well… anyway… ahem… That's Grace for ya… Mixed with Seth's comments about how we could get more fish when Bobby and Larry died, I really figured we were through the whole event without any tough questions…

  But just a few minutes later, I realized I figured wrong. Grace headed back to Seth's room to console the other fish by explaining to them that they could see Gordon again when they died and went to live with him in the potty. And then Seth wondered if Gordon was going to stay dead forever. And we began to have a talk about death…

  I think I did a relatively miserable job overall… but I really tried…

  Somehow we got through it with my kids having a basic understanding about people's souls and how they go to Heaven. We even touched on the resurrection, since Seth wondered if the people's bodies would stay dead forever. Oh, brother… I hope I didn't botch it too badly. No one ever asked about whether animals have souls, and I was spared any reference to "fishy Heaven"… I have my own thoughts on all of this… controversial as they may be… and although I do not claim to have the absolute truth, I do think there will be animals in Heaven. God created them to live in a perfect world, and there are Biblical references to His care for them, so I can't figure why they wouldn't be there. But I guess I don't really want to start a philosophical debate over it, either.

  And I guess that's all there is to the story, as well…

  Lisa