Thursday, August 02, 2007

Bye-Bye Mimi


Oh man. On Sunday, just 4 days ago,
a little girl, we'll call her Maiya, won 2 little goldfish
at the West LA Obon Carnival. On Wednesday morning,
we named the orange one Rainbow
and white/sparkly one Mimi.

On Wednesday afternoon,
Tony mentioned that Mimi wasn't eating the food
and Jenni noticed that Mimi was looking
a little less sparkly and a little more brownish.

Guess what we found Wednesday night?
On the day that Maiya turned 2 1/2 years old?
Poor little dead Mimi floating
on the bottom of the fish bowl.

We quietly took Mimi out of the water and threw her away.

This morning, Maiya climbed up on her stool,
peered in the fish bowl and asked,

"Where's Mimi? Mommy, where's Mimi?"
Mommy stopped what she was doing
and went to go find Daddy.

"Honey, come quickly,
Maiya is asking where Mimi is."

Tony jumped up and came over to the kitchen.

"Where's Mimi?"
"Umm, Maiya. Mimi got sick.
Sometimes fishies get sick and then they die.
Mimi won't be coming back. Let's say goodbye to Mimi."

"Ok. Bye Bye Mimi."

Should we have done some kind of
ceremony, ritual or burial for Mimi?

What is the right thing to say to a child
when their first pet dies after only 3 days?


Over the next half hour Maiya walked
past the fish bowl several times

Each time she said,

"Bye bye Mimi."



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh no! So sad... I don't know whether there's a right way to handle it! Maybe if she's still talking about it this weekend, you could make up some ritual for Mimi.

Bye bye Mimi.

Jenni said...

RIP Rainbow fish as well. 2 Fish, 5 days.