07.25.08
Saying goodbye to my gentle girl & “Uncle Wiggly Wings”
This morning I looked for fish. She was nowhere to be seen. I tried to find her on the bottom of the pond using a long handle swimming pool net but couldn’t locate her. I’m certain she’s dead.
Just after dinner my mother called to tell me that the ABC Evening News with Charles Gibson was featuring the air force pilot who began the candy drops for the children behind the Berlin Wall. He was named “Person of the Week”. His name was Hal Halvorsen. It has been sixty years this week since this pilot’s mission began. Letters to “Uncle Wiggly Wings” written by children had been accumulating in the base office because he would rock his plane before he would drop candy bars with handmade handkerchief parachutes to gentle their fall. Mom had family, which means I had family, behind the Berlin Wall as a young girl. Mom, her sister, mother and grandmother had escaped ahead of the Russians and began a new life in West Germany Mom asked me to watch the news story because it meant a lot to her as a ten year old girl on the free side of The Wall. Thank you Uncle Hal for making a difference in the lives of children.
At 9:10 tonight I went out to check the pond. My gentle girl drifted to the surface. It was dark outside so Daniel helped me net her and we buried her in his herb garden near the pond. I think that was a better place than in the pumpkin garden in the back yard.
She was a very gentle and timid koi. Each of the koi has a different personality, a few are aggressive or boisterous and others are indifferent. She ate gentle, swam gentle and never shoved any of the other fish out of the way when I would feed them. She would swim up to me to say good morning when I approached the pond, and would hover in the water for a few moments to look at me, my gentle girl. I’ll miss her.
Below is a photo taken two years ago. She is the large white fish facing to the right. She grew another four inches since then.
