How Myrtle Helped Me Find Grace

I remember the first pet I ever lost. Her name was Myrtle and she was a little painted turtle.

One of my brothers and I had put her in the toilet to watch her swim. I turned my head to yell a question to Mom in the next room. Instead of her response, I heard the sound of disaster: My 6-year-old brother had pushed down the toilet's handle, and Myrtle was swirling away from my reach. Through my sobbing, I heard him tell Mom that he wanted to see if Myrtle could reach the ocean. Neither of us understood that our house was hooked up to a septic tank.

Mom hugged me and brushed away my 5-year-old tears, and taught my brother and me something we could understand: We needed to love our pets every day because we would live longer than they would. We didn't exactly understand why, but we accepted her explanation. She anticipated our next question: "Yes, Myrtle is in turtle heaven."

Alex Guillen, one of our summer reporting interns, writes in the fall issue of Delaware Pets about that unfortunate reality -- how parents must prepare their children for the day when Fluffy or Nemo or Buddy winds up in their specific heaven. On the day we lost Myrtle, Mom said a few words, and we bowed our heads and prayed for a turtle.

It was a lesson in grace and humility, and as I've lost pets as a teen and later as an adult, it was the solace to which I always returned.