It seemed like it was finally time. For at least a year before it was finally time the girls had asked about whether they could get a pet and we talked about getting them each a fish—a good starter pet. Still, it took us another year after those initial conversations and planning to go to the pet store and let each girl pick out a Betta fish, also known as Siamese fighting fish. It turns out even a starter pet of Betta fish is an expensive investment because they need separate spaces and separate anemones to hide and sleep in, and separate tank decor (like a treasure chest or barrels to serve as another hiding place). Eventually, we moved the Bettas from the small fishbowls we picked out to filtered 5-gallon tanks. At last, our girls had their first pets—Sonic, our 17 year old’s fish, and Eclipse, our 15 year old’s fish.
Only a few weeks later, the starter pet Bettas were eclipsed by Zuzu, a tuxedo cat abandoned at the hotel where my husband worked as the general manager. Still, those tiny fish added a splash of color and joy to our living space and we learned that they often will come to identify with their humans, even following a finger along the glass of the tank as well as identifying the red cap of the food container. The girls still appreciated their fish, but a cat who shared their same space, well that was a completely different experience.
Even so, when our 17 year old’s fish, Sonic, died less than two years after we brought him home, two years ago now, we gave him a small funeral so we could have a moment to say goodbye. Life carried on with Zuzu and a single Betta fish, Eclipse. However, despite Eclipse’s tank’s presence on our dining room table, his presence was not nearly the center of attention it was when we first brought him home; it ebbed and flowed, and cleaning his tank became a bit of a chore I ended up taking on.
As it turns out Eclipse was either younger or more hardy than his counterpart, Sonic, because he went on to live about two years more. It was only this week that Eclipse finally made his way to the great fishtank in the sky. Unfortunately, he also required some assistance in that process. He was no longer swimming around his tank and had taken mostly to lying on the bottom of his tank.
Still, I put off assisting him over the Rainbow Bridge for as long as possible. Until it became too obvious that letting him continue on the bottom of his tank really was not kind. My husband had done the research and read information from avid fish folks, and, with all this information, it seemed like it was finally time. None of this was easy for my 15 year old to handle. Death is a matter she finds difficult to discuss or deal with, even if it involves her Betta fish. I’m guessing his final weeks required her to consider a concept that upsets her more often than she would have preferred. This was more obvious as the process itself took place. All of this provided me a glimpse of her uncertainty around this topic.
And, yet, as we headed out to pick up my husband that night, the sky was in quite an array of sunshine and clouds, with a small section of the sky looking like a doorway. Even as we were driving my 17 year old looked out the window and announced that the sky was an obvious picture of Heaven. We marveled at what appeared to be an open door in the doorway to Heaven. We agreed as we drove and my 17 year old attempted to take a picture of the sky that clearly God had thrown open the door of heaven to welcome Eclipse at last. It was a lovely moment, but one that my younger teen wasn’t a part of until her sister shared her photo in a family text thread.
It is in these kinds of moments that my girls’ different temperaments become more obvious to me. Because while they share many things in common, there are some clear differences and distinctions about them beyond their passions, special interests, and hyperfixations. Where our 17 year old helped us bury her fish and said goodbye to him, our 15 year old attended neither Sonic’s burial nor her own fish’s goodbye. Because I recognize her difficulty around death, we did not require or expect her to behave in any specific way around the death of Eclipse. It is enough to know that she cared about him and enjoyed him while he was here. Processing anything else will come at its own pace and in smaller steps.
What I love and appreciate about our girls is the way I can count on them walking alongside each other when the need arises. I have witnessed their bond and their ways of supporting one another in ways they don’t always recognize. Even more, I appreciate that they respect their differences and work to accept those as much as they accept their overlapping likes and similarities. One thing I have worked on with each of them is realizing that autism in our house can look like whatever the autistic teenager needs it to be at any given moment. I’ve reminded them the world too often isn’t inclusive enough for autistics and that makes their support of each other that much more important, however that may look to their sister.