All by myself

Holy smokes...I looked at my site meter today and found that I have one, that's right I said ONE, reader a day.

How sad. But of course it's my own fault. I have fallen off the radar.

I no longer write consistently, nor do I read or comment consistently.

I don't want to go completely by the wayside, but unfortunately circumstances have changed, and I'm not able to tend to my blog as I once was.

Even I miss my writing, so I can only assume that my regular, loyal readers do too. So much, in fact, that you just can't even bear to bring yourselves over here to check me out.

That's what would account for my daily average readership of ONE person.

Oh, wait a minute...an average of one means that somedays there are NO readers.

PATHETIC!

I'm not even sure of what to write about. I remember loving to write about my past and intertwining it with my present. I seem to recall that many of you enjoyed those stories too.

So here is a quick one.

When my oldest son was 3, he had two goldfish he named Grape and Fruit (clever, huh?).

Well, Grape was a pleasantly plump guy, while Fruit had black spots on his lovely golden skin (do fish have skin?)

As luck would have it...one dark, grey, somber night...Grape bit the dust.

Being that our son was a sweet little 3 year old who had no experience with death, we had to decide how to properly deal with the situation.

What could we possibly tell our sweet little boy about the fish he had grown to love (after 3 weeks)? I mean, we wouldn't want to tell the truth...that the fish had died, and start explaining the meaning of life, and what happens when someone dies, and that mommy and daddy won't be dying anytime soon, etc. etc.

We did what any good parents would do...we panicked...and quickly drove to the local pet store to buy a new Grape. Unfortunately we could not find one quite as plump, but we knew a 3 year old wouldn't notice.

We snuck the new Grape into the bowl while our little boy slept soundly and unknowingly.

The next morning he woke up, and ran downstairs to see his precious goldfish, as he had done each morning those 3 weeks since he had acquired the fish.

He looked carefully, left and right, looked away, and back again. We held our breath hoping that he wouldn't notice that Grape was not quite the same.

After a few moments of sizing up the situation, my son turned to us and announced "Look mommy, Grape got skinny!".

Whew, it worked...we didn't have to deal with the dreaded subject of death.

Now for the part where I intertwine this story of the past with my present.

I would not have dealt with this the same way today. I would have used it as a wonderful opportunity to explain the cycle of life and death to my son. I would have used real language: death, dying...not "passed" or "gone to sleep". I would have allowed him to express what he loved about Grape, what he would miss about Grape, to say if he felt sad, or scared, or mad that Grape had died. We would have had a funeral service and burial for grape. I would have answered any questions he had about death. I would have told him that we would always hold what we remember about Grape in our hearts, and that we could talk about Grape anytime he wanted to.

Maybe more than one person will read this...maybe not.

I miss blogging. I miss talking to people all over the country and world for that matter.

I miss sharing stories that might touch someone's heart just a little.

I miss your comments, because it reminds me that people just want to connect and make contact and know we're not alone in our thoughts and feelings.

I hope you are all okay.

Thanks for reading.