My Dad’s a Goldfish – swimming into the wide blue yonder

I’ve been thinking about how to write this blog post for the last few days, wanting it to be meaningful and powerful and …I don’t know what. In the end there’s only one thing to say right now:
The Goldfish died the evening of December 3rd. Although we thought we were prepared for it to happen at any time, it turns out we weren’t and we are still trying to process it. The funeral is tomorrow (Wednesday 10th) and I am both longing for it to be over and dreading it.
He had a seizure and lost consciousness. The ambulance came within minutes and headed for the hospital. He stopped breathing just as they turned into the hospital. I am glad of that. Although the hospital had the Do Not Resuscitate form, I’m not sure they would take time to look through the paperwork and so he was spared that final indignity.
His last couple of days were good. We thought he was recovering from the bout of pneumonia he had. We had got him a wonderful new wheelchair a couple of weeks before so his last two weeks were comfortable – in his old wheelchair he tipped to one side and what, to us, seemed an alarming angle, though he didn’t seem to think so. He was causing trauma to his shoulder and side and the new chair enabled him to sit straight and at ease. He had an outing in the sunshine on Tuesday and on Wednesday afternoon he was full of smiles. In the evening he enjoyed homemade lentil soup with bread followed by sticky toffee pudding with thick cream.
And three hours later he was gone.
I have almost a year’s worth of journal entries from the end of January last year up to December this year. I’m not sure what I’ll do with them. I am not sure if this is the last entry on this blog. I am not sure of anything right now.
I hope the Goldfish knew he was loved by me, Wee-sis and DH – and I hope he is at peace.