R.I.P., Raoul

Raoul Sparky Bubbles has gone to that big aquarium in the sky.

You may recall that Raoul became the official fish of room 101 in February (a Valentine's gift from my family). He amused my students for four months, and they paid him attention and spoke kind words through the plastic of his tank. Then summer came, so Raoul moved home with me and lived on an end table in the living room, amusing my children and their friends who came over to play all summer long.

My wife took over feeding him in the summer (and had always cleaned his tank), so I spent less and less time with Raoul, and eventually we "drifted" [ahem] apart. I hadn't spoken to Raoul in perhaps weeks when my wife changed his water Tuesday night. Tuesday, August 30, 2005. A night that shall go down in infamy.

"Mommy, Raoul's asleep," Abigail said, coming into the living room and lying on her side on the floor, her arms floating in the air to demonstrate Raoul's position and the stillness of his fins in the water. Indeed, Raoul had fallen asleep--the sleep from which no fish ever again awakes. We let him rest overnight, hoping we would awake in the morning to find him refreshed and swimming around like normal. Alas, it was not to be. Come Wednesday morning, Raoul was definitely dearly departed.

Suzanna and I brought Raoul out to the alley, thinking we would put him on the gravel road as an offering to the birds and cats of the neighborhood. Raoul would have wanted it that way, we thought--the whole "circle of life" thing. So his death was not in vain (at least from some creature's perspective, be it vermin or animal); and his memory shall live on, especially in the minds of my children who paid him so much attention and so loved to refer to him every time by all three of his names. Thus shall I memorialize him, in their honor and in his:

Raoul Sparky Bubbles
Beloved Betta Buddy
February 2005 - September 2005