R.I.P. Indiana Jones

I am not reporting that Harrison Ford has passed away. That would be sad. I am a big fan and there's just something about Han Solo and Indiana Jones that gets my heart a' fluttering (I just don't get the whole earring thing). No - I'm posting about a loss that hit much closer to home...

Tonight Hudson had his first experience with losing someone (or something) that he really loved. It was either late 2008 or early 2009 when I took him to Petco and we got a small plastic "tank" and two goldfish - Frank and Indiana Jones. They grew to be too big for their little home a while back and we recently moved Hudson's little pets into a bigger, happier home. While we were at it, we got them a few companions - a cleaner catfish named Kitty, another goldfish named Luke, and an African Frog named Freddie. They were all one big happy family.

Over the past few days, Indiana started to look a little under the weather. He took to hanging out at the bottom of the tank or floating partway on his side at the top. He'd perk up every now and then but this morning, it was apparent that he was on his last leg...errrr, fin. By dinnertime tonight, he was stuck against the filter with insufficient strength to swim away from the flow. Max and I talked about it and decided that it was time to put Indiana out of his misery. As soon as Hudson understood what was going on, his eyes welled up and he buried his face in Max's chest and cried. I quietly took Indiana out of the tank and took care of business while Max consoled our grieving boy. I had explained to Hudson some time ago that fish (especially goldfish) don't always last very long and that it was O.K. if they died. He seemed to be alright with this but there obviously wasn't a way to prevent his becoming attached to his fine-finned-friends and it hurt to see him hurting tonight. I know that Indiana Jones was just a fish and while we didn't cry, it was an emotional thing for us to see Hudson's reaction tonight.

Now, in honor of one of the greatest feeder goldfish that ever lived:

R.I.P INDIANA JONES

? - 1/17/2010

First we have a picture of Indiana in his younger days. As you can see, he was orange and white when we got him.

As Indiana got older, he lost almost all of his orange...only his tail had a little touch of it. This blurry shot was taken by his loving owner with the Crayola camera he got for Christmas:

As he was saying his prayers tonight, Hudson asked that Indiana Jones would be blessed that he wouldn't hurt anymore now that he's in heaven. That didn't tug at my heartstrings at all. As for me, my prayer is that my little boy will always have such a tender heart.