Daring to Love Again

He was beautiful. Big eyes. Adoring manner. I never dreamed that I could love someone like him, but there it was. Within days I fell. Hook. Line. Sinker.

He showed up in my life while I was out of town on a business meeting in Miami. It began with a phone call:

"Hello?" I answered the phone.

"Hi, Honey. I've got some news," said my husband. "After school today, Z-boy and I bought a fish."

"Oh, great..." I thought. "That's wonderful!" I said.

"He's a betta. They're agressive, so you can only have one in a bowl by itself. Z-boy named him 'Goldie'. Guess what color he is."

"Ummmm.... blue."

"That's amazing! How'd you know?"

And so began my relationship with a... fish. And weirdly enough, it was a relationship. Goldie lived on the big desk with the computer and kept me company when I was working at home, writing letters or just writing. Often I would stare at him swimming around and around in his bowl until inspiration lit up my brain. I talked to him, stroked his bowl, and after a while, he became my fish.

When I fed him in the morning, he would leap about in his bowl, and when I came home in the late afternoons, he would do it again until I came over to say "hi." He would swim along my finger to pet himself when I put it in the bowl.

The bowl got plants. Rocks. A thermometer. Then he got himself a real aquarium with a heater for those chilly mornings. Yup. Goldie was living the good life and me right along with him.

Then one morning, he didn't seem quite right. He was swimming slightly nose down. He didn't eat his breakfast and totally ignored me. Worried, I checked the internet to see what might be wrong. Looked like dropsy. I went and bought all the appropriate treatments, but he got worse and worse and finally towards the end of the second day, he stopped swimming with his nose on the bottom of the bowl (I had moved him back to his bowl when he got sick) and floated to the top.

I cried. My husband cried. My son cried - then asked for a kitten. I couldn't believe my Goldie was gone... and I couldn't believe that I was crying over a fish.

Other fish came to live in our aquarium. They lasted a while, then died. None of them were like my Goldie.

Today after school, my husband, my son and I went to the Pet Supermarket. We wandered around a bit and brought home a gorgeous red/purple/green betta. He lives in a flower vase with green gravel and a miniature treasure chest. His name is Lava.



I think I am in love.