Ten minutes into Angler’s swim, dad noticed Oscar in the deep-end not doing so well. On Saturday, dad cleaned the pool and Angler took the opportunity to go for a swim. After a stern reminder that fish only lived in cool fresh water, his dad relented. Angler named him Oscar and begged to have Oscar in his room. Angler chose a glistening yellow and blue Beta fish with a long sweeping fin.
A few days later, Angler asked to take a tub bath, and at some point, after his mother settled him in the water and left to check on his sister, Angler decided “Hey, Oscar ought to expand his horizons, swim in a more prominent bowl.” After another shoebox funeral, sad little Angler understood that Beta fish, like Oscar, could only live in cool, fresh water and didn’t need bubble baths to stay clean.Īngler cried himself to sleep, and his dad, feeling somewhat responsible for his son’s misunderstanding, came home early from work the following day and carried Angler to the pet store to pick out another fish. School ended early that day, Oscar received a proper shoebox funeral, and a broken-hearted little Angler learned the difference between lungs and gills and why fish lived in water.Īngler’s aunt replaced Oscar the next day with another shimmering blue and orange Beta fish. Just as mom was about to pop the obvious question, she saw Oscar, dead center, on the front row. Mom smiled, turned to leave and noticed Oscar’s empty bowl. Seuss book, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Angler stood in front reading his favorite Dr. He’d carefully placed each furry friend and his GI Joes in rows simulating his kindergarten class set up. One Saturday morning Angler’s mom walked into his room and noticed Angler reading to his stuffed animals. Loved to feed him, loved to help clean his bowl. Angler named his new friend Oscar, placed his fishbowl on his bedroom dresser, and told him all his five-year-old problems–his mom never made pizza anymore, his baby sister broke his favorite GI Joe action figure, Toy-R-Us filed for bankruptcy.Īngler loved Oscar. When Angler was five-years-old, his aunt gave him a beautiful cobalt blue Beta fish. His favorite toy was his collection of plastic fish bait, and he’d spend hours separating and categorizing hundreds of slimy, squiggly worms into colors and sizes and place them in separate compartments in his fishing box that was roughly the diameter of my double-oven. As I pondered this baffling dilemma, one of my grandsons came to mind.Įarly on we nicknamed this grandson Angler. This conundrum awakened me at three AM last Thursday–that and a thunderstorm and one too many glasses of merlot that stretched my bladder to the size of the Goodyear blimp. But what if someone inadvertently does something horrible? What then? Are they still destined for a terrible fate?
It seems fair and just that our future is determined by our past actions, good and bad.
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