Eulogy for my Pet Goldfish

As we stand here today, by the toilet side, I wonder, why? Why did my poor Goldie have to die? She was just a goldfish who never did anything wrong in her life. She was good and sweet and a wonderful color. I wonder why there has to be a cycle of life. Why new things are born and old things die. Why can’t everything be forever?

I was thinking long and hard abut my poor Goldie and how much I miss her. And if she was here, how I would remember to feed her all the time and I would play with her much more. I look back at how much I took for granted that she would be in her tank, on my dresser, all the time. I never thought the day would come when I would see her belly up, floating on the top of her tank. I cried that day for what I had not done and for what I can never make up to her.

I realize that things have to have a cycle because if they didn’t life would be taken for granted. Knowing that life is infinite, people would not ever know what a treasure life is. An infinite life would mean we could do everything later, for there always would be a later. We would all be procrastinators and never get anything done. We would fail to acknowledge the meaning of life and the meaning of time.

Only after something dies, we truly know how important they were. You don’t really know how special something was until you don’t have it anymore. We should take a lesson for the future to appreciate all that we have. We have to tell them how much they mean to us, and show how much we love them. We can’t let that opportunity slip by. Death brings us back to reality.

My Goldie had to die for her time was up. But in her death she left me with the greatest gift. She let me know how special life is. My Goldie is now in heaven and though I miss her dearly, I know she is up there looking down on me. I know she is proud that I took the message she left me. I thank her for who she was and how she changed my outlook on life. Life is limited so use it to its fullest.

written 11/06/2001 (6 years ago! when I was still in High School)

4 comments:

TimothyTang said...
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Dovid Nissan Roetter said...

I remember doing things like this!

MENACHEM ROETTER said...

dear pesha,
although you wrote that poem over 8 years ago it seems like you were writing it right now to me for you.
your goldfish describes perfectly except that goldy did not have any brothers being loved by her.
PESHA WE NEED YOU BACK DOWN HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i need you down here its so hard WHY????????????????????? why did hashem do this to us????????????
your loving little (baby) brother
Menachem Mendel Roetter
I LOVE YOU SOOO MUCH

Ella said...

Pesha, we loved you, why oh why did you leave us? this poem is perfect, just we now have to subsitute the goldy for pesha...