Finn, our beloved Beta fish passed away sometime during the night last night.  I noticed this morning right before we were going to sit down for breakfast, as both our fish, Finn and Blub, lived in separate habitats on the end of our kitchen counter.

I conspicuously turned the fishbowl containing poor Finn’s body so that the boys would not easily be able to see it and tried to eat my bowl of granola without thinking about the dead fish in the bowl directly behind me.

It was after breakfast was cleaned up, the boys were dressed and the lunches were tucked away into their corresponding backpacks that I broke the news.  I had rushed the boys through our normally slightly rushed morning routine so there would be time for what lay ahead.

The boys did not take the news well and I have to say that there was not a dry eye in the house as we stood in a small circle around the damp paper plate on which the little shimmering blue body of Finn lay before his funeral by flush.

We reminisced.  We said goodbye.  More tears started to flow.  We talked about how we felt.

Time was ticking and there was school to get to.  I get to do a full year of student teaching in the Master’s program I am in, and being late is NOT an option.  The situation needed to be handled quickly but very carefully.  I went to my good old standby, reading a book.

We only had a couple minutes so I told the boys to pick a book and I would read a little from it before we had to go.  The book ended up being a Magic School Bus book about dinosaurs.  It was on the second page of our reading that things took a turn for the better, all thanks to the supercontinent Pangaea.

The boys were fascinated that earth’s landmasses were not always configured in the way they are on our globe.  This lead to many questions as we hurriedly put on shoes and grabbed jackets on our way out the door.  The entire drive time conversation on the way to school focused on Pangaea, tectonic plates, and dinosaurs.

Thank you Pangaea for being so super and helping my boys get past their sadness over the loss of their fish this morning.

And Finn, you are missed.