Goodbye, Gary

  

One thing that I've been wanting to do since we moved here is take the kids to the concert at the Botanic Gardens.  So last Thursday, we packed a lunch and we went.  We ate turkey sandwiches and orange Jello bears while listening to a guy with a guitar sing Journey and Dobie Gray (Drift Away).  The sun was shining, people were lounging on their blankets and lawn chairs. It was great.

We got these at City Market.  They're really good.

                                                                          

Will playing at the edge of the pond during the concert.

 Will discovered that there were snails playing on the same rock that he was playing on.  He was so excited to show me.  I had a hard time keeping him quiet and the older-ish people around me were giving me dirty looks.  They obviously forgot how hard it is to keep kids quiet sometimes. 

So Will, of course, wanted to keep one of the snails.  I, of course, told him no.  Fifteen times.  More dirty looks. 

See those cool lily pads?

So then Will decides that if begging isn't going to work, that bringing one of the adorable snails over to me might.

"See, Mom?  Isn't he great?  His name is Gary."  Now the people around me are giggling.  So I have to tell the boy that the snail is happy here in the Botanic Gardens.  He has an awesome pond.  He has friends.  He gets to listen to live music every Thursday at lunchtime.

But Will is already devotedly attached to this tiny snail.  And after an inspection of the rock from which Gary came, I determined that the snail population was healthy enough to sacrifice one small snail.  "Just one, Will."  So I gave Will, and Gillian, who was an accomplice, I might add, a ziploc baggie from our lunch.  They brought Gary home. They set him up in a Mason Jar complete with rocks, sticks and stinky pond water.  They fed him grass.  They put him on the back deck with a great view.  Life is pretty good for Gary.

Now you might think that this is the end of the Gary story, but you would be wrong.

The day after bringing Gary into our lives, Will wants to hold him and see how he's doing.  I was inside, doing something in the kitchen.  The next thing I know, Will is a blur running through the living room, shouting, "Oh no!  Gary fell!"  He ran out the front door, around the house to the ground under the deck.  Gillian followed.  After some searching, they came back in, with Gary.  His shell was broken.  Will had accidentally dropped him, and he had fallen through a crack in the decking.  Pretty much all that was left was a green blob resembling a really big booger.  And he isn't moving.  Poor Gary.

Okay, now this is really sad.  What's REALLY sad is how sad Will has been.  "Do we have to bury Gary?"  "What happens to him after we bury Gary?"  "Will I ever see him again?"  "I really miss Gary."  We went to see Ramona and Beezus last night, a movie in which their cat dies, and Will got so upset on the way home, he was sobbing.  For only being a part of our family for not even 24 hours, he really captured Will's heart.  Man.  This was really tough,

Photo courtesy of Spongebob.

But we can't end this story here, either.  As Will would say, "I have some GREAT news!!"  It just so happens that Will and Gillian illegally brought home TWO snails that day in the park:  Gary Sr. and  GARY JUNIOR!!  So we have another little snail to carry on Gary's legacy.

And Will wants you all to know that we love Gary and we miss him.

The End.