Our experiences with fish haven't proven successful and I think we are done with them for a while. In September of 2006 Grace "won" a fish at the local catholic school's fall festival. Grace was excited and named her "Tahya". Now Tahya was your basic goldfish and she stayed with us until March of 2007. Her death was an unfortunate event only because she died while in the hands of Darren's coworkers while we were on vacation for Spring Break. They quickly got a replacement fish and Grace never suspected a thing! Tahya II stayed with us until that next August. One morning we woke up and she was just a floatin'. We decided to spare Grace the agony since it was right around the time of her 3rd birthday. Tahya II just "disappeared"...bowl & all. Grace didn't notice until a few months later. She then began asking, "where is Tahya?" We just assured her that she was off visiting her fish family in the ocean. This past September we took the kids to the same fall festival that we first "won" Tahya at. Grace suddenly remembered that this was where she got Tahya and she was determined to get her back...a whole 2 years later! Unfortunately, they did not have the "Fish Pond" booth this go round and poor Grace was disappointed. She was so upset that we told her we would take her to the pet store to get Tahya. The very next afternoon we found Tahya back at the pet store from visiting her family! We brought her home and Grace was glad to have her beloved goldfish back! Then it all fell apart... We came home from school one day a week after getting her and found her floating! Darren sat down with Grace & explained what happened and she cried a bit, but was soon asking for another. So, off we went to the pet store yet again. This time we persuaded her to get a Beta fish...you know, the ones that "live forever". She was excited and proud once again! We brought her home and got her all situated. Grace named her Connie...because we always say, "real good Connie". Now, here we are 4 months later with another catastrophe on our hands. I was cleaning up after supper last night and while at the sink I looked at Connie's bowl and realized she was not swimming around. I called for Darren and he came over and moved the little octopus-hiding-spot-thing that is in her bowl. Sure enough she was inside dead as can be. Now, we haven't broken the news to Grace yet. We didn't want to upset her before bed and we put it off this morning so that it wouldn't ruin her day at school.
Not sure how we are going to handle it at this point, but one thing is for sure... we are going to take a break from fish for a while, if not forever!
R.I.P. Connie
September 2008-January 2009
