Dorothy the Goldfish came into our lives on December 1, 2005. She was a “gag” present from my sister and her husband for my oldest son’s 2nd birthday. Dorothy was an ordinary orange fish from the Meijer pet section and was named after the more famous fish that starred on Sesame Street with Elmo. My wife was a bit annoyed with this present since we had a newborn baby to deal with, but my sister assured us that it wouldn’t be around long. She had gone through six or seven goldfish in the past year. Still, my wife wasn’t going to be bothered with it, so I took charge of Dorothy’s care. This was the first strike against the poor goldfish. I once had one of those Beta fighting fish on my desk at work that died from neglect after a week. I left it there until its body disintegrated.
For most of the first months of her life in the Roseberry household, no one paid much attention to Dorothy. We stuck her up on the counter in the kitchen and I cleaned her bowl out whenever I started having trouble seeing her through the feces or my wife nagged me excessively. We didn’t bother giving her much attention because we knew that she was going to end up belly-up any moment. That’s what these kinds of fish did and it’s why they cost a quarter. They are disposable.
Dorothy didn’t have any plans of going away so easily. After six months, she was still with us...and thriving. My oldest son was old enough to pay her a little bit of attention, and she took to wagging her fishy tail at him whenever he came near.
One afternoon we were leaving for a family event and my wife asked if I had cleaned out her bowl. I said I would take care of it when we got home. She gave me a judgmental look which I chose to ignore because…come on….it’s a stupid goldfish.
When we came home later that evening I glanced at her bowl and saw that she was on top of the water, upside down, but with gills still moving. I glanced back and my wife was busy messing with the kids so I sprang into action. I could not be the cause of death for my son’s first pet.
I threw her in a glass, washed out the bowl and rocks, and poured in the clean water with chemical treatment. Just as I was about to throw Dorothy back into the clean bowl, my oldest noticed my panicked motions and came over beside me.
“What are you doing to Dorothy?” he asked.
I looked into the glass and she was upside down and floating towards the bottom.
“Nothing,” I lied, “Just giving her some fresh water.”
I dumped her into the clean bowl. My oldest son watched her flop to the bottom and then rise back
upside down to the top while grotesquely flapping her fins.
“Dorothy is swimming funny,” he commented.
“I think she’s trying to do a trick,” I replied.
This just kept getting worse and worse. My son looked at me and, even at two and a half, he knew I was full of crap. He ran off to tattle to the parent who didn’t kill Elmo’s friends.
In a final desperate attempt, I grabbed Dorothy the Goldfish out of her bowl. She was limp and motionless in my hand. I held her upright between my thumb and forefinger and moved her back and forth in the water as I have seen fisherman do on fishing television shows as they release their fish (“Oxygenates the gills” they said.) At first nothing happened, and I started practicing the excuses in my head. (“Dorothy ran away from home to go and live with Elmo. Dorothy turned into a rock. See! Dorothy is visiting friends and will be back tomorrow.”)
Suddenly, Dorothy began wiggling between the fingers and took off darting around the bowl. I peered down at her with amazed and grateful eyes as she swam quickly from side to side. I breathed a sigh of relief and marveled at the realization...I had just CPRed a goldfish. I felt like the greatest dad in the world. I regaled my wife with the story and she wasn’t nearly as impressed with my revival skills as I had hoped. The following day she took over Dorothy the Goldfish’s day to day care.
When we moved into our new house, one of the first things my wife did was place Dorothy in her exalted place on the bar above the kitchen sink. She upgraded her to a larger bowl with brighter and more lavish rocks. Dorothy had natural light from windows and glass doors on three sides, and our lives literally revolved around her. This loving spot was indicative of her new role in our family. My wife had taken to feeding her faithfully every morning with a sweet, “Good morning, Dorothy,” and cleaning her water once a week whether she needed it or not. Over the years, her longevity became a major discussion point among friends. There wasn’t a friend or relative who visited us who didn’t know and appreciate Dorothy the Goldfish.
There was one living creature who loved Dorothy more than anyone else, and that was Trina the cat. Trina spent almost every waking moment perched by Dorothy’s bowl watching her gracefully swim from side to side. At first we feared that Trina was looking for a snack, but in truth she only wanted companionship. She had always been an only pet, and treated more like a child than a feline. Trina, however, fell deeply in love with Dorothy. She couldn’t even be bothered to leave her fish friend to get a drink of water. Instead, she would simply raise herself up and take a drink from the bowl. Dorothy didn’t panic. Trust is what true friendships are all about.
The tragedy of the doomed love affair (and this is a different story, different time) is that Trina developed bladder tumors the next fall (most likely from the bowl water) and passed on beyond us in 2007. Dorothy was looking a bit worn and transparent, but she had more living to do. Over the next three and a half years, Dorothy watched from her bowl as the boys gained inches and a new son joined our home.
On July 17, 2008 we came home from a day trip to find that Dorothy the Goldfish had died. There were bags to unpack, dishes to put away, dinner to fix, and a dance class to get to in a little over an hour, but attention needed to be paid. My wife draped a dark green scarf over her bowl, and we talked about what she had meant to us.
My oldest son was very upset. He was a little over the top with the drama, but I could see in his forehead and downturned cheeks that he was feeling some very real emotion. He kept saying over and over, “Did you forget that Dorothy died? and “I can’t believe I’ll never see Dorothy again.”
We made plans for a funeral later that evening, and my wife took my oldest on to his dance class. Me and my other two sons were in charge of the coffin. I asked them what they thought we should put Dorothy in and my middle son said, “Put her somewhere in the yard so a bunch of animals can eat her!”
While his understanding of the circle of life was admirable, I didn’t think that solution would fly with the rest of the family. I searched through the house looking for something disposable, biodegradable, and somewhat respectable. While I paused briefly when I found a toilet paper roll in the trash can, I ended up with a band-aid box which only housed a few band-aids.
An hour later all five of us were outside standing over her grave in our garden while my wife said a short prayer. I looked around at all of the solemn faces and couldn’t help but smile at all of the fuss and emotion for a little critter who cost less than a pack of gum. A little fish that my wife happily greeted every day as she took her first sip of coffee. It seems like such an insignificant gesture, but suddenly you look back and realize you’ve had over 1300 mornings with a goldfish that should have died within days of arriving in our home. My wife told me afterwards that she also couldn’t help but smile during the ceremony. Her smile came not from amusement, but from the image of two old friends, a cat and a fish, finally back together again.
