H.E.N.R.Y is D.E.A.D. Why kids and pets don’t mix

I had no choice. I had to get on board. I mean it wasn’t the ’80s and we knew that deep emotional support would be needed when Henry inevitably died. I had read the literature. As an aside, I warn you not to read the research out of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, entitled “The mental health effects of pet death during childhood: Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?” where the researchers posited question is answered thus: “No. It’s not better to have loved and lost cause kids can get real messed up when pets die.”

A different helpful guide entitled, “When a child loses a pet” available through The Trauma and Grief Network which is part of the Australian National University, suggests that talking about the pet after death, finding ways to remember the pet and supporting a child through their grief is an opportunity to build acceptance of grief as being part of life. Psychologists tell us that it’s best to be honest when telling your child that a pet has died. Modern parenting advice includes preparing a memorial or planting a tree or compiling a photo album or scrapbook to remember that pet. And it is essential to not rush a replacement pet because kids need space and time to grieve.

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I knew through my modern parent research that we needed to talk, support and remember the fish in the event that the fish died. Got it. Can do.

So, I let down my guard and I got involved in Henry’s life. I pimped his crib like we’d pimped Arnold’s crib. Fake plants, bubbling water, the sound of the monotony of life gurgling in the background, a fluorescent water wheel – and a loving family that stared in at him and told him all their painful life secrets.

Maybe that’s what kills fish. All the pain and heartache that their human captors thrust upon them. Maybe that’s what eventually killed Henry. Because of course, not long after we got Henry, I found him belly up, eyes bulging with a knowing stare into the middle distance that I had seen 30 years earlier.

I gathered myself. We decided that we would tell our eldest daughter who was eight years older than our youngest before we told him to get her on board as part of the dead fish support crew. Their dad was set the task, he had bought the damn fish after all, and chose the time he had picked them both up from school to let her in on Henry’s fate. The little guy hadn’t yet worked out how to spell so this was the mode in which their dad delicately delivered the news to the eldest: “H.E.N.R.Y is D.E.A.D.”

She looked at him in horror. ‘What?’ she stammered. He looked at her, confused, wondering if she hadn’t understood him. This wasn’t even her fish, she hadn’t even fed him, why was she feeling so deeply about it? He repeated, hoping that she had just misunderstood him, “H.E.N.R.Y is D.E.A.D.”

She began screaming and threw her hands across her face as the colour drained from it. “What?” she screamed. “What???” Her dad began to panic, had he misjudged this whole thing? The young guy in the back seat was starting to freak out because there was suddenly mayhem in the car. He started screaming and crying in sympathy. “Are you sure?” she bawled.

“H.E.N.R.Y?” she spelt. “H.E.N.R.Y?” she repeated. “But he was at school today,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “… We played soccer together.” For a second her dad didn’t understand. Then it dawned on him that her friend at school was Henry and as far as she was concerned, he had just told her that her best friend was dead.

When eventually things were sorted out and the real Henry was identified as being the fish, things calmed down. Our son didn’t really care too much that Henry had died, “Hey, these things happen” and then something about life being a journey where death is inevitable and that the fish would provide for him an important opportunity to practise grief.

Or some kid-type carry-on.

But a goldfish has no hope of darkening my door again and I encourage the same with you. Don’t get a fish. They die. Vis a vis we all die. And quite frankly that’s a bummer.

Jacinta Parsons is a Melbourne writer and co-host of The Friday Review on ABC Radio Melbourne.

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