Goldfish Graveyard

I was six when I went to my first funeral. It was a painful, palpable heartbreak. Goldie had come into my life at the Henry Adams Elementary Family Festival in a water-filled bag won by successfully casting a plastic rod over a blue bedsheet hanging in the doorway to Mrs. Aycock’s 5^th grade class’s GO FISH booth.

Goldie was the first pet I’d ever had who was ALL MINE. I’d spend hours watching her traverse her eight inches of round real estate, her lips opening and closing rhythmically, seeming to mouth, “You’ve got this,” (bloop bloop) as she comforted me through whatever six-year-old trauma I was enduring.

“No! I don’t want to stop reading Frog and Toad to set the table!”

“It’s gonna be ok.” (bloop, bloop)

And Goldie was right, until she wasn’t. I came home from school one afternoon, about six weeks after she joined my bedside menagerie of a dozen stuffed animals and one once living fish. There she was, floating belly up in her bowl. I was devastated, especially when my father proposed a cold, subterranean eviction via the toilet. After several hours of sobbing, I successful negotiated with my mother to give Goldie a proper burial.

We nestled her into a Russell Stover’s sampler box and picked a plot between the shed and the garden. I carefully buried the box under a lasagna of dirt, kitchen mulch and pine straw, marking the spot with a popsicle stick cross inscribed with BEST FISH EVER. As I delivered a poignant eulogy about her unparalleled kindness, my little brother – forced into his Sunday best - boredly drove his Matchbox car up daddy’s leg.

“Goldie was loved by everyone who met her,” I declared, completely ignoring the reality that my two neighborhood friends had only ever cast brief, indifferent glances at her bowl enroute to my basket of Barbies.

Afterward, we retreated inside for an appropriately themed wake:  bright orange Tang and Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers.

Over the next couple years, the Goldie Graveyard grew exponentially. I hosted increasingly elaborate services with lengthy eulogies and extravagant catering. My mom was enlisted to bake fish-shaped sugar cookies or Pineapple Upside Down cake in a nod to the vertical orientation in which Bubbles or Sparkles or Clementine had been discovered upon their demise. Finally, after about a dozen dramatic internments, mom drew the line. No more fish.

That Easter we got a rabbit.

He was white and fluffy, with silky pink ears and eyes like little maraschino cherries. We couldn’t believe the Easter bunny gave us one of his brethren! He hopped around the living room leaving a trail of tiny, round poop balls across mom’s Karastan rug like a mini-malt ball dispenser gone rogue. My brother and I were instantly in love, which naturally meant we immediately started fighting. We couldn’t agree on a name. Thumper, Coconut, Snowball and Bugs were all vetoed.

But, with his little nose crinkling like Samantha in Bewitched, “Sniffy” was the obvious, superior choice.  Until my brother saw him peeking around a chair leg and dug his heels in on the name “Peeky.” Stupid, I know. We argued for hours before our mother stepped into the living room ring to broker a diplomatic truce. And Sniffy-Peeky became the newest member of our family.

  Oh, how I loved Sniffy-Peeky. In the beginning, he was the center of my universe. I’d rush home from school to cuddle him and share the latest news of my day. Dad built a grand two-story wooden hutch in the backyard, and I became Sniffy-Peeky’s personal waitress, scattering carrot tops and romaine hearts like high-end appetizers on his dining room floor. When the neighborhood kids brought over lettuce scraps, I beamed with restaurant managerial pride.  He was a fast hopper though, and frequently escaped under the back porch, hiding beneath the army-green metal rowboat until daddy got home from work and gently coaxed him out with a rake.

A pet rabbit can live for eight to twelve years. The lifespan of cognizant childhood is far shorter.

Before long, junior high extracurriculars, boys, and the intoxicating scent of Drakkar Noir took over my world, while Sniffy-Peeky’s world shrank back down to his hutch. My occasionally daily visits turned into an afterthought, more a chore than ardent affection.

One afternoon when I was fourteen, our neighbor, Mrs. Lucas, came over with a baggie of dandelion greens for our bunny. “Knock knock!” she announced through the screen door and then walked right in. I met her in the entry hall, as mom emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.

As Mrs. Lucas handed over the greens, mom stepped back and shook her head.

“Oh Joy, Sniffy-Peeky is no longer with us.”

“Dottie, I’m so sorry I didn’t know.”

  “What?!” I cried, tears instantly tumbling down my cheeks, “But I love Sniffy-Peeky!” I collapsed to the floor sobbing uncontrollably. The crushing weight of grief and sudden, unbearable guilt flooded over me.

“How could this have happened? When?” I wailed, looking to my mother for comfort.

Mom looked down at me, and said, entirely too matter-of-factly, “Well, you obviously didn’t love him that much.”

She turned toward the den and called out, “Hey Bill, guess who just realized her rabbit died?”

From the couch dad chuckled, “Well, it only took you three months to notice.” 

The three adults stood there laughing while I remained crumbled on the linoleum, entirely humiliated. I wasn’t just grieving my little white friend; I was mourning the agonizing realization that I had transitioned from the sensitive protector of animals into the punchline of my parents' afternoon. Worse yet, I had been robbed of my signature ritual: a proper funeral.

“Where is he buried?” I whimpered.

“He’s in your goldfish graveyard,” mom said quietly.

Love requires us to actually show up.

       That evening, I went out to the backyard alone. There were no fish-shaped cookies this time, no Tang, and no audience. The service was a private penance. I hammered a large wooden stake into the dirt beside the popsicle sticks, writing his double-barreled name in thick, black permanent marker.

Standing by the quiet, empty hutch, the gravity of growing up really hit me. The goldfish graveyard wasn't just a place where pets went when they died. It was a place where my childhood footprint stopped expanding, a quiet monument to the passing of time, and the hard, necessary lesson that love requires us to actually show up.

As shared at UNLEASHED at the Torrance Cultural Arts Center October 3, 2026. First version shared as Pet Cemetery at Story Salon on January 24, 2024.