I really love “Just One Last Swirl Around the Bowl,” Dan Barry’s Modern Love essay about a dad caring for his daughter’s dying goldfish. It’s funny and heartbreaking and the kind of stuff I aspire to write. See for yourself:
For the record, I am a fish person only in the sense that I like to eat them, exposing me, I suppose, to some critical filleting. Then why have I become emotionally attached to a pocket-size creature that lives in a cocoon of water? It does not sleep in my lap. We do not play fetch. Never once have I taken it for a walk or even a swim.
A satisfactory answer evades me. But in its BB-size eyes I see, or I think I see, the panic before acceptance. I’ve seen that before, in other eyes, and — never mind. Just know that I have become caregiver to a $3 fish that could fit in my mouth, a particular problem should CPR become necessary.
Every day now, I shake out seven or eight pellets and carefully fling them into the bowl, one by one, aiming the brown specks so they descend where the fish can eat them with minimal movement. Sometimes they float just beyond his mouth, and he bites — and misses. Sometimes they settle onto his tail and even, now and then, on his forehead. He doesn’t move, but there is little I can do. More than water separates us.
