French Fry's Goodbye 🪦🍟

It was one of those late nights—dance class ran long, so dinner ended up being “Old McDonald’s,” as we call it. Fries, nuggets, and wrappers scattered on the counter. That’s when we realized French Fry, Bennett’s betta fish, had died.

French Fry wasn’t just a fish. He and his counterpart, Pinky, had joined our family on a whim—a “day-off adventure” for Bennett and me. Hear me when I say I’ve been more diligent with these fish than ANY I’ve had before, because the kids truly loved them. But in the span of a couple of weeks, we lost both—Pinky first, then French Fry. (At the time of French Fry's passing, we had already replaced Pinky with a new fish, appropriately named Chicken Nugget.)

When Bennett spotted French Fry’s still body, his eyes brimmed with tears. He wasn’t okay. And he was especially not okay with the idea of flushing him. “The toilet leads to the sewer,” he said firmly. “We can't do that.”

So, with McDonald’s still on the counter, we improvised. French Fry’s body went into a chicken nugget carton. Bennett grabbed a blue crayon and, through smudged tears, scrawled “French Fry” on a scrap of paper—his makeshift tombstone. Then we lit a candle. One tiny flame flickering beside a nuggy box coffin suddenly turned our messy kitchen into a vigil.

But Bennett wasn’t done. "We need to bury him," he said. So, we found an old flower pot decorated with nature stickers and stars and gently laid him to rest.

Before covering French Fry with the top layer of dirt, Bennett insisted on saying goodbye—one last time. Under the stove light, he leaned close, peeked into the pot, and sniffled, then whispered: “He really did have beautiful scales.”

And then the questions rolled in:

How long do fish live?

How long do other animals live?

What are organs?

What happens when they stop working?

His curiosity and grief braided together into this deep, raw conversation, and I cried right alongside him.

And then came the worry for the living: “Now Chicken Nugget won't have a best buddy,” he said.

We talked about how we could be there for Chicken Nugget, how family steps in when someone is missing.

Kora, seeing her brother’s sadness, chimed in with her own form of comfort. She made up a song on the spot and sang it (on repeat):

“He's still in our family. We're always together. We are together still…”

Her sing-songy little voice filled the kitchen, weaving itself into the candlelight next to the nuggy coffin, a soundtrack of resilience.

Grief, Gray Hairs, and Growing Up

Just recently, we said goodbye to some of our human family members, and with those passings fresh in our minds, French Fry’s death cracked the door open wider for Bennett’s big questions about life and death.

One day, as I bent over to help him tidy up, he spotted my grays. My neglected hairstyle had left them showing in streaks. He panicked:

Why is your hair turning white?

How old are you?

What if you’re not here very long?

What am I going to do without you?

I reassured him: hair changes color, it’s normal, no big deal.

The very next day, like a little baby monkey, he picked through my hair strand by strand and declared, “Mom, it looks good. Some of them are gone. You’re not getting old.”

He was saying it to me, but really—he was saying it to soothe himself.

Then came Brandon’s birthday. “How old is Daddy?” he asked. Thirty-eight. “How old are you?” Thirty-seven. He paused, eyebrows furrowed. “So Dad is OLDER than you?” When I said yes, the math landed heavily.

Age, mortality, change—it all felt a bit much in the moment.

Reflection

This is the strange, beautiful thing about grief: sometimes it’s wrapped in a nugget box, lit by a single candle, and sung through the cracked voice of a sister trying to make things okay. Sometimes it shows up in gray hairs or the numbers on a birthday cake. Sometimes it’s all of it, all at once.

And kids—kids will meet it head-on with raw honesty, gut-deep questions, and acts of tenderness that undo you. Bennett’s tears. His worry for Chicken Nugget. His whispered awe at French Fry’s “beautiful scales.” Kora’s improvised hymn: “We are still together.”

What I hope my kids carry from that night isn’t just sadness, but the rituals we created together—however imperfect, however funny in their details. Because grief isn’t something to rush past. It’s something to hold, honor, and—sometimes—set gently inside a nuggy box, with love.

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Dive deeper with the "5M" MoveMaker Method - exploring EQ from all angles:

Mini Takeaway:

Grief doesn’t have to be grand to be meaningful. Sometimes it comes in small rituals—a candle, a crayon, a nugget box coffin—that remind us love doesn’t vanish, it simply changes form.

Music Reco:

Kora’s impromptu song was the real soundtrack here:“We are always together, we are still together…”

For your own version, pick a familiar melody (like “Twinkle, Twinkle”) and adapt the words to fit what you’re feeling. Singing grief turns pain into presence.

(Comfort) Meal Ritual

Next time you sit down with your family—even if it’s fast food at the end of a long day—pause before eating. Light a candle, share one memory of someone (or something) you miss, and then enjoy the meal together. Food becomes more than fuel; it’s memory-keeping.

Movement Exercise:

The Goodbye Stretch

1️⃣ Sit on the floor with your legs crossed.

2️⃣ Place one hand on your heart, one hand on your belly.

3️⃣ Inhale slowly: “I remember.”

4️⃣ Exhale gently: “I let go.”

Repeat three times, closing with a bow of your head. A simple physical act of honoring loss.

Mind-Bender:

What do we really mean when we say someone “stays with us”? Is it their body, their spirit, the memories we hold, or the rituals we create to keep them close? How might that answer shift as you age—and as your children begin asking their own big questions?

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