The Death Of Dash

 Last night when I sat down at the formal dining room table to read my scriptures, I noticed that Dash (Autumn's fish) didn't move when the table was jostled. He just stayed down at the bottom near the rocks. That's pretty typical for him when he's resting. But, I noticed that he wasn't his bright greenish-blue color near his face and that he had turned a blackish color. So I gently shook his whole fish container to get him to move but he didn't! Poor Dash had died sometime during the day b/c Nick said he was moving around when he fed him this morning. I didn't tell Autumn until we got home tonight, b/c I didn't want her to be upset all day at school.

 She cried and I just hugged her and told her how lucky he was to have her as a owner, that he lived a long and happy life, etc. I asked her if she wanted to bury him in the back yard or if she wanted to flush him down the toilet for his funeral. She chose to bury him in the backyard, so we wrapped him up in a piece of paper towel. I had her pick a spot in the yard and she chose this flowerbed so he can be by the pretty flowers in the spring.

 She dug the hole and then covered him up. We've had him for almost a year, b/c Deckers gave him to Autumn for her birthday last year.

 She found some rocks and outlined his grave w/ them. I asked her if she wanted to say a few kind words about him but she just ran in the house. I stayed out there for a minute and said a few things about how we'll miss him and that we hope he's happy in fish heaven.

The pastel sunset tonight w/ the sliver of the moon was so pretty. We are going to miss being mesmerized by watching Dash swim around in his tank. He was such a good looking fish.