Morbidity and mortality

Not to be too morbid or anything, but have you ever thought about how you'll leave this earth? In my case, it's likely heart disease or a stroke that will eventually off me. I'm not really a risk-taker, and my family seems to be (thankfully) pretty cancer-free. But three of my four grandparents have diabetes, and as they approach 80, the cardiac problems associated with the disease are starting to make their days more and more precious.

Now the death of our family pet, Minnie the betta, I can predict with about 90% certainty.

When we got our first fish last year (Hungry and Thirsty), I was initally reluctant because I didn't want to deal with a belly-up goldfish in the bowl. In fact, when Thirsty #1 died, I closed the door to Bryce's room so none of the kids would find her and waited until Eddie got home from work to take care of her.

Minnie (who happens to be a male betta, despite his feminine name), probably won't live long enough to go belly-up in the bowl. At fifteen months, Isaac has three words he says with regularity. Unfortunately, "mama" isn't one of them. But "ish" is (so is "dada," and how weird is that since he spends all of his waking time with me and sees Eddie for about an hour on weekdays, if he's lucky). If I'm in the kitchen, chances are that Isaac will be sitting on the counter next to me, putting his face up against Minnie's bowl, which sits on the bar. Every time I put him up to look at the fish (at least 20 times a day), I have terrible visions of Minnie's bowl crashing to the floor, the baby crying, the fish flopping helplessly on the floor, and me running from the house, screaming. I guess I could move the bowl, but if I moved it any lower, Isaac would certainly have his hands in the water, trying to grab swimming Minnie. Sooner or later, I bet he'd catch her.

Our neighbor keeps trying to give us one of her puppies. My kids would be crazy about a puppy. But if a fish turns me into a nervous wreck, a puppy would probably drive me positively insane.

--originally published 1/19/06