Sad times have hit the DeZeeuw household.

Actually that’s not entirely true. I wish it were true in this case, but, it’s not, exactly. You see, our fish, Hector Barbossa, passed away a week ago. And, I will have you know that I saved that creature’s life three whole times! I even requested that people refer to me as The Fish Whisperer.After he became ill, I changed his water daily, gave him medicated drops, scooped out uneaten food, and most importantly, I spoke to him lovingly. When the thrill of a new pet wore off from the rest of my family, I stayed and visited him, assuring him that things would get better. But, alas, some of my final words to him in the evenings prior to his passing came in lieu of me gently shaking his bowl to get him to move. “Hector, Hector, are you dead?” I’d whisper to a dormant Betta fish. We had him since the beginning of June. Get a look at how he looked before he became ill.

Oh my word, he was gorgeous, right? He was social, too! Anytime we came over to see him, he’d swim right up and look at us. He was very interactive.

He didn’t look like this for long. He turned a kind of dark blue, almost black and his fins, well, they didn’t look like that at all.

So, the day came when Hector passed and Chris and I wondered how we would share the news with the kids after school. We decided to be right up front about it, telling them that Hector had passed away, that he just never recovered from being sick. The response was a little lackluster. Logan expressed a sudden desire to go visit him at his bowl, saying, “But I was going to go see him just now!” Seriously, though, who are we kidding. He stopped visiting Hector a week or two after we got him, I’m sad to say. I’m sure Eli understood to an extent, but he mostly just mimicked our sad faces. I know the kids missed him based on various comments that they made after the fact.

And that was that.

Yesterday, we went and picked out a new fish. I am secretly claiming it as mine since I will be the one taking care of it. On the way home from the fish store, the boys and I entered into negotiations about what the fish’s name would be. Here are some names that were thrown out for consideration:

Captain Fish

Zane

Kai

Master Yoda

Captain Rex

Smitty

Captain Smitty

But then, after we returned home and I got the fish into the bowl, I found myself referring to it as “she.” Far be it for me to determine the gender of my pet fish, but how do I really know? I don’t. But I have a feeling that the lovely ones with vibrant colors and large fins are male.  Regardless, I made the executive decision to have it be female! She is very beautiful and she looks like she’s glowing if the light from the window hits right. She’s very sleek and feminine. We decided we could call her Luminara Unduli of Star Wars: The Clone Wars fame. We call her Lumi for short.

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship…