end of the rainbow

Mon and I were in the kitchen this morning and noticed our pet beta fish, Rainbow, had died. Yesterday we noticed it was hard for him to swim, even swimming nose straight up, tail down. Not pretty. Today when we got up it was officially the end of the Rainbow.
Actually, this was our second fish named Rainbow. The first was given to us by a family who moved. It had been given to them as a gift a week before they moved from Ohio to North Carolina. Nice gift, but not a convenient one to move to North Carolina. We had it a long time before the first Rainbow met an untimely demise. The day after Rainbow 1 died we ran out and got Rainbow 2. We weren't trying to keep it a secret from the boys, but we also didn't transition Rainbow 1's passing very well.

Jake took Rainbow 2's passing pretty hard. I told him when we came home from church. He cried immediately and openly for a good five minutes. Caught me by surprise. We all piled into the bathroom as we poured Rainbow in the commode. Sammy flushed. And flushed. We closed the lid and that was that. I did peek in on the boys later as they were watching a video. Jake still looked bummed and, he was.

Both Rainbows were hardier than goldfish. If there's anything I'll miss about that dumb fish it wont be cleaning the bowl every two weeks, or whenever we got to it--it'll be knowing that at the other end of the Rainbow is a family that we care very much about and that that small physical living swimming connection is no more. We were wondering what to do with Rainbow when we go to Sweden. Not to sound grim, but I guess that takes care of that. There won't be a Rainbow 3, at least on this side of the Atlantic.