I Called Them by Name

I never grew up with pets and never had any. But wait I did have two but only for a very brief time.

Anita and I hang out during my graduate school days at Iowa State University.  I met her on a weekday student Mass at St.Thomas More and we just hit it off.  I had been to their house for Thanksgiving and she was one of the sponsors in my wedding. I forgot now whether she was a veil or candle or cord sponsor.  Sponsors are given tasks in rituals unique to Filipino weddings and were assigned to ones closest friends to do.

We loved to eat out and I remember eating at Long John Silvers where we over indulged one time.  We were ready to burst when we burped. We also loved to go shopping. We decided to go to a pet shop one day where they were having a sale on gold fish.  Anita convinced me to buy a couple of beautiful ones which I brought home in a plastic bag filled with water.  I transferred them to a fish bowl where I even decorated with plastic leaves and a bluish decorative thing which I think I still have.  

I excitedly put the pair of fish in the bowl and fed them with some food I bought.  We decided to name them after the two young actors in the movie we just saw, The Turning Point. Their names were Mikail after Mikail Barashnikov and Leslie after the female lead actress.  I placed the fish bowl right beside my bed in Buchanan Hall.

When I woke up the next day, I was stunned to see my two new pets floating not swimming in water.  They were dead and I was devastated.  I have heard before that once you call a pet by name it is very hard to let go of it.  I named mine and though I had them only for a day I had become attached to them.

I called Anita since I had to ask her how I would bury them.  I was thinking of doing so on the pot with my plant beside my bed.  She nixed the idea since they would smell.  So I reluctantly and sadly flushed them down the toilet.

I had to attend our weekly group meeting with our research adviser, Dr. Russell, that morning.  I spent a lot of time fretting over the loss of my two pets and was emotionally drained,  I did not feel like attending the meeting. I called Dr. Russell up on the phone and told him I could not make it to the meeting.  I was dying to tell him why but I felt he might think it too looney a reason to say I was grieving the death of two pet goldfish.

My life with my two pet gold fish was short but somehow after 40 years, memories of losing them still linger in my mind.