Butter’s Bright Basics

I ask that you take care of all your pets and remember to cherish life from every frenzied breakfast to every dance battle in the tank, all the way full circle to listening to podcasts like MTA Podcast and story time with Jk Rowling’s The Ickabog. A tour of my emotions when I saw my fish sick, knowing it is all my fault, and what I chose to do about it.

I wrote my blue mustard betta fish, Orca Faith Joyce, 2 love notes. The yellow flower stickers were a good pick because they symbolize how sorry I am that I just let 4 new marimo moss balls in his aquarium without quarantining them beforehand. I called him mi hijo cause I am learning Spanish. The Moss balls had parasites but I thought "so rare, would not be me!" 

Even reading this months later … my blood boils and my tears flow like icy slush. Sometime last Spring … now is Autumn, I lost Orca.

Today, I remembered this is important to chat about grief in a mental health blog sort of thing so here I am. Hello. I see that little guy everywhere. Bettas are usually one at a time in an aquarium so you can always name them. Bettas are friends, not food, as Nemo says! On my phone, I glimpse gorgeous pictures I took of him conjuring longing and this denial that he is still with me that he is home. Two weeks after his pulse stopped, I turned to work his ten-gallon tank was still dirty and I said “Orca fishious!” I forgot I remembered, it is my loss. A month after, I eventually cleaned the tank and stored it off. Orca was a gift and his memory is like a dream come true that I will hold.

There is so much more to express but the words are sort of getting stuck, like the glue that keeps Orca a part of the Joyce family it is strong and tough and valiant!

Right there with you!

Butter (she/her)