Losing Abraham

Last Friday nite after a loooooooong week, we were getting ready for bed when I heard a scream and Gracie yelling, “mommy, come quick, something is wrong with Abraham”! Abraham is a black gold fish that Gracie got for her 10th birthday about two weeks ago.


I run (ok I really just walked – I was beat from the week) into her room and see that Abraham is swimming on his side. Not good!


Gracie is usually a pretty tough and realistic kid, so I was not expecting any drama. Boy was I wrong!


She had just finished with a rough week and losing Abraham was the last straw.


She proceeded to sob and wails like a Southern Baptist woman who had just lost her whole family! She reached her hand in Abraham’s tank and tried to move him back and forth to get oxygen in his gills. She had seen us do this with our catch and release trout. She lay over her dresser and cried while watching him slowly get worse and worse. She would reach her hand in the tank and hold him upright hoping it would help.


I mustered all the empathy I could muster while trying to stifle an occasional giggle.


Finally, I got my Jim involved. Being a hunter and fisherman, he is the expert in the family. He came in and declared Abraham was dieing and there was nothing we could do. More wailing!


Finally after about 45 minutes, Gracie decides she has to sleep in our room with us because she is too distraught to sleep in the room where Abraham died. So she goes into my bedroom and lies across my bed, doing some more sobbing!


After a few minutes, she is ready to take the next necessary steps and instructs me to instruct Jim that she wants Abraham buried in the back yard but she doesn’t want to be there for the burial. BUT she needs to know where it is so she can add a memorial rock. And she wants Daddy to remove the tank from her room and clean it out really good for the next fish! So I pass on the instructions and go sit with Gracie for some quiet time. We both spend a little time reading and every few minutes she does those deep breaths that come with sobbing. After awhile she goes to sleep, completely spent from the drama of losing Abraham.


While all this was going on, she reported to me that there was no way she was going to play in her soccer tournament the next day – she just couldn’t do it!


So the next morning when she wakes up I am ready for more drama and have a strategy for talking her into playing soccer. The first thing she does is sit up in bed and say, “good morning mommy, I am feeling much better about Abraham today. Where is he?”


Whoa, whoa, whoa. I was not ready for calm and reasonableness. I didn’t quite no where to go with this or how to respond. So I quickly decide to do what I always do…..tell the truth.


So I say, “Daddy put him in a Ziploc bag and he is in the fridge in the garage awaiting burial”. And then I prepare myself for sobbing.... Nope. Nothing. She just says, “Oh ok.”


Then she heads downstairs and meets Jim in the garage and says to him, “Where’s Abraham?” He had not had the opportunity to see her complete 180 in attitude from the night before, so he was still thinking tears and drama and he wasn’t sure how to respond. While he was stalling and trying to think of what to say, she says, “I know he is in the fridge, but where in the fridge?” At this point, I walk in and see the total confusion on his face because he can not believe she is so reasonable! So my Jim points out where Abraham is being kept until his burial. And while he is doing so, Drew walks in and says, “Dad, did you filet him?”....


You will be happy to know that 5 days later, Abraham is still in the fridge in a Ziploc bag. We have not had time to bury the poor little guy. And last nite at dinner, Gracie reported, “Mom, did you see Abraham? The bag he is in is all cloudy.” And then she did a little pretend gag like she was throwing up!


I guess she is over it!