Renaldo...
So he's dieing, it's official now.
Renaldo is my goldfish and I've had him for a long, long time now. I won him two summers ago at a fair which in of itself was an accomplismnet. The last fish I had, Herman, I also got at a fair, but I didn't win him, it was the end of the fair and the fish needed homes so they were giving them out.
Renaldo I won on my own with my own luck and skills and I named him that night, and yes it is a ridiculous name, but I've come to love it.
He's been with me for over a year now. Last summer we went on vacation and when we came back he was very depressed and stressed out and all he would do would lay at the bottom of the bowl and he wouldn't eat or anything, I was very concerned. My mom talked to the pet store people and they told us he was just stressed out from my Grandma overfeeding him (all the food sunk to the bottom and made his bowl super dirty and stuff too) so we cleaned out the water and put stress drops in that they gave us at the store and he got better and lived through that.
We got him a bigger tank, a 5 gallon, and a pretty plant attached to a piece of petrified wood and nice stones and a filter and everything.
He was little when I got him, just a little fish, he's really grown in size, afterall goldfishs' size depends on the size of their tank/bowl.
So Renaldo has grown, but he got sick again.
His one has been red for a while now, it concerned me and my Mom was going to ask the pet store people again, but it's too late now...
He still swam around and asked for food by swimming up to the top of the tank. This action was something I took great joy in seein him do, I felt like a proud mother, because when he was sick he didn't go to ask for food, he wouldn't eat and I would get scared. Seeing him want food was something that made me feel good, he'd eat, he'd live.
I came home from school today and he was at the bottom of his tank, his head was on the pebbles and he was floating kind of vertically, his tail bend over. It's hard to describe. I was perplexed. What was he doing?
He was still breathing though, but he was very pale in color and I was very sad.
I've never ever seen a fish die. I've had many fish and they all died eventually, but I never ever SAW it happen.
You usually just come home to them floating at the top of the bowl, or wake up to their lifeless forms.
But here is Renaldo, wasting away right this very second. It's terribly sad.
The saddest part though, the part that actually made me shed tears over a fish, was when my Mom decided we should move him over to a seperate bowl of clean water and as she scooped him up in the cliche green net, he did the unthinkable.
He didn't flip or flop or struggle at all. He just layed there, perfectly still. No, he didn't die. He's still breathing in that little bowl now, but it broke my heart. To see an animal just GIVE UP. It's utterly heartbreaking.
I know it's silly to get so attached to a fish, to cry, but if you really think about it, it is incredibly gutwrenching.
Don't think of Renaldo as a fish, think of him as someone, a person, or a dog, just so done with life that they don't even tremble or shudder at death, simply accept it, just laying there, completely exhausted with life.
I don't want him to die and yet, I can't wait for it to happen. Because he doesn't want to live. I know that now after watching him not flip around in that green net, I know he doesn't want to live anymore. He's sick and he's old, I'm proud to say I had a fair fish that actually lived over a year. I hope he had a happy life, I loved him a lot.
Renaldo <33
It's so sad to see you go. If you could, pretty please keep fighting, but I understand if you don't want to. I hope you know I loved you, I hope you're going to be happy in the other world, whereever fish go. Pass on peacefully.
But for now, just keep on breathing okay buddy?
Please?