" Death of a Fish"

This reading made me think of the many childhood pets that i have lost. This might be weird, but in my backyard at home we have a tiny pet cemetery. I've lost count but between me and my two sisters it has about 4 or 5 different small rodent type animals in it. Mine was named pineapple. One time my little sister's hamster,Bean, died and she was so upset that my mom put together a little hamster wake and and funeral. We also have these pet urn type things with the ashes of our childhood dog and our recently deceased 23 year old cat.
This essay looks at it from the parents point of view. It must be hard to have to explain things like death to your child. You want to protect them from everything bad in the world for as long as you can but eventually things start happening and questions start to come up that have to be answered. Death can be a hard concept to grasp even when you are an adult. I know that i was extremely afraid of it when i was a child and maybe because it wasn't something that i had even been aware of until the first death of a family member. Maybe i would of understood or dealt with it better if i had had a Bluie in my life.
The essay is about more that just the death of a fish. It taps into questions about different views and beliefs on death, parenthood, and the minds of children. The experience is easy to relate to. It is publicly relevant to anyone that has ever had a pet and lost them or even lost anyone that was close to them. The essay was published in the New Yorker and was definitely relevant to it's audience. It talks specifically about having pets in New York and it is from the parents point of view which is suitable for the older audience that is more likely to read that magazine. There is a lot of outside research and i almost don't even like the ending because of it. Maybe it's because i haven't even seen that movie but i just don't like that ending for some reason.
The parents end up learning a lesson from the child i think. She was connected to that fish and even though she is young she is not a fool. Even though they did it with good intention, replacing the fish and trying to pass it off as Bluie probably wasn't the best thing to do. You can't hide your child from something that is real, and death is something that everyone is going to be affected by throughout their life and even experience themselves. When this happens to my kids, i know what i won't do.