Goldie died this evening. Goldie was Zander’s pet goldfish. Zander is my six year old grandnephew and his goldfish died. How do I describe to you the scene as it played out on the front porch of the parsonage?? I had told Zander that Goldie was dead when I saw him in the tank. But Zander had to get the fish net, scoop him out and put him in another bowl to check it out. Goldie has not been a well goldfish for some time now. He had something wrong with his back; it was all curved and had a twist in it. He was also bloated, so much so that he had a terrible time trying to swim. He was often upside down, sideways or head first to the bottom. I guess it made him feel more comfortable, but he frequently wedged himself between the filter and the side of the tank, or under the bubble ship that rocked back and forth at one end of the small aquarium. Zander was forever trying to help Goldie, thinking he had become stuck behind the filter. He was sure that if we feed the fish properly or put more water in the tank, maybe then the fish would be better and then he, Zander, could take Goldie the gold fish, out for a walk. Zander liked to pet Goldie and was convinced that the fish had learned to “eat out of his hand”. Especially when Zander would put a tiny bit of fish flakes on the end of his finger, placeing it just at the surface of the water; where Goldie seemed to nibble at it. Goldie was Zander’s first pet and Goldie died this evening.
I watched this little boy spend almost a half hour, cross legged on the ground, thoroughly convinced that if we simply did enough of the right thing, Goldie would be okay. Over and over, Zander insisted that Goldie just simply was not dead. Several times, Zander picked up the dead fish, putting it next to his ear, listening, trying to hear the little fish’s heartbeat. He tried to straighten out his bent back, again telling his mother and me that Goldie wasn’t dead; he just needed to go to the pet doctor. Finally he said to his mother, “Please, could you use your power and kiss him back to life?? Please, mommy.” How do you explain to a six year old, so filled with belief, that it just doesn’t happen that way. His mother looked at me, with a look on her face that said, “Tell me what to do. What do I say now?”
Zander then picked up the fish again, looked at it so closely, holding it so gently …he kissed the fish himself, watching to see if it had any effect. As he placed the small body back in the bowl, his eyes lost just a bit of their childhood awe. He was so sure the magic would work. Didn’t mommy and ‘Mer Shane’ fix everything and kiss all his boo boos away?? As I stood there on the porch, watching him, my mind kept saying, “Why does he have to lose the wonder? How much will it take before he, too, no longer believes – in the magic?”
You may wonder why I am telling you this story. For me, part of it is cathartic, I have to tell someone of the scene on the porch. Another part tears at my own soul. When we suddenly lose something we care about, when something or someone is taken away and suddenly we realize how much they meant to us, some piece of us dies just a little. We struggle against accepting the reality of a reality we don’t want to be real and we die just a little more. Until we come to the place where there seems to be nothing more to lose, the magic is gone. And sometimes, at those moments, we plead, “Please, kiss it back to life.” Sometimes we cry out, “Please God, kiss me back to life!!!”
As we grow older, we seem to grow out of the wonder, the awe, the magic of belief. Then, when reality hits us, yet again, and we stand on the edge of some crisis within our adult living, we cry, “God, kiss me back to life!!” And here’s the wonder, God will. In our times of loss, whatever that loss may be – family death, broken relationships, change in jobs, illness, despair, distrust, losing a pet – when we don’t want to accept the reality before us, when it seems as if we are dead inside – God can and will, kiss us back to life. Now how amazing is that?? Within the emptiness we feel, God breathes the Spirit of life, the ruah – the wind of the spirit as at creation – God breathes the Spirit and kisses us back to life. Giving us a gift that for our human existence seems, sometimes, almost too much to accept. How paradoxical!
My story of Zander ends with his final acceptance of the need to bury Goldie, and we did so in one of my garden-in-a-bucket buckets, under a tomato plant so that Zander will know where Goldie is. With his little eyes, filled with tears, holding tightly to his mother’s neck, Zander said, “Be sure you pray for Goldie at church.” I assured him that I would and that the folks at church would also indeed pray for a little boy’s first ever pet, his Goldie, and that indeed, God would kiss us all back to life.
Post Script: As I left the house this morning to come over to the church office, Zander looked up from watching his current favorite movie, “Remember to pray,” he said. On this morning after death, I offer you this – Know the presence of the Spirit. Feel the kiss of God – and live!!
