If you count all the goldfish, crickets, and Siamese fighting fish, then I have been to more funerals for pets than I have for people. When we lived in East Boston my son used to con me into running a cricket rescue. Whenever we were buying pet food, he would beg and plead for a dollar's worth of crickets. Sometimes they ate potatoes in their critter-keeper but usually we let them go in the yard. We often laughed on hot summer nights when people out for a leisurely stroll would stop in front of our apartment to listen the song of the crickets. Ours was the only house that had em'! When the little fellows in the critter keeper died, we always had a proper send off, complete with grave markers.

Countless numbers of gold and other fish had a burial at sea, not via the toilet, but through a hole in one end of the Cashman Boat Pier in East Boston. We (me and the kids) would take the solemn walk from apartment to pier and all of us would say a few words. Most of the time though it was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud as I laid on the the fish tales pretty thickly.

"Goldie came to us from the Early Education Center and a finer fish I have never known. He served as a sterling example to the kindergarten kids of how to care for living things, and we all enjoyed watching ______ (insert name - more often than not is was ...you guessed it "Goldie") grow into a fine fish. Goldie looked forward to the morning and evening meal and (splash) we return you now Goldie to the great circle of life."

That sort of thing.

Having kids and any kind of pet just leads to seriously somber yet silly funerals and lessons about life and death. I will never forget scattering my dog Dina's ashes over the snow in her favorite field. We were not prepared for them to pile up instead of blowing away. Each time we went to visit her we would put rocks on the site but for months her ashes were visible and we couldn't bury them because the ground was frozen. We had piles of rocks in the car that we got at the beach to stack in a mound at the site, only to return and find they had been removed, probably by other children. My kids picked only their favorite rocks, but I had to console them that other kids surely could see just how special and carefully selected each rock must have been. It was so sad that it become one of the funniest things to ever happen in my life. We would go back each time and laugh and laugh. It really was one of life's cruel jokes.

But this morning's funeral was different. Today we buried Blazekin our red-factored canary in front of the day lilly patch. Ask any person with a rescue animal and they will tell you how it must have been fate that they came into their lives. Animal people can attach a lot of significance to meaningful numbers and signs when it comes to their adoptees. Charlee is in my home partly because I thought her birthday was the same as my last two dogs'. Hmmmmmm.

Following that reasoning, Blazekin (named after a Pokemon for those of you out of the loop) really was meant to live in our home. Nearly four years ago my husband and son were walking in East Boston when my son spotted a yellow bird amongst the trash and weeds. They quickly scooped it up in a Dunkin Donut cup that was blowing by and brought it home. At first glance I thought it was some sort of Finch, but it turned out they had found a male canary. The poor bird had suffered some sort of horrible abuse and was wrapped up in micro thin wire. His legs and wings were broken and it took us hours to get him completely untangled. Our little foundling lived in our home for over a year, but could never perch normally. We kept his cage as clean as we could and he in turn thanked us with beautiful songs daily. We were deeply saddened when our yellow bird died.

A few days after the yellow bird's passing found us visting a friend at a Petco store in Massachusetts, who worked in the bird room. Cindy had helped us with the little yellow bird's care and she gasped when I walked in exclaiming "I can't believe you are here, I was just looking for your number." She quickly ushered me into the quarrantine room where a gorgeous red canary sat convalescing for - you guessed it - another foot injury. The store could not sell him and they wanted to know if we wanted him. Of course I said yes!

So we made preparations to head home. The kids were very excited at the prospect of our newest addition. We picked out a cage and bought food but then were told that the employee who nursed him back to health had decided to take him home after all because "they had bonded".

We're told that we can't have him. We felt that bird was meant to live in our home and were saddened by this announcement. We wondered what the odds were that two injured canaries would come into our lives and just "knew" that bird was meant to be ours. The kids took it hard that the bird they had named Blazekin was not coming home with us.

Somehow I was conned into getting two parakeets at the shelter in Westbrook. The very day I brought the parakeets home I got a message from Cindy at Petco to come back and get the bird before the employee changed her mind (again). Her fellow Petco co-workers had talked her into letting us adopt Blazekin after all. So that is how we came to be a three-bird family.

Blazekin was different than any other bird I have ever known. I am sure that the care of his leg wound required that he be handled constantly and so he had become bonded more closely with his caregivers, and to me in particular. He would follow me about the house wherever I went and his songs were a special treat. On his final day, he followed me downstairs to the office and fell asleep on my desk. By the time I realized he was sick, it was too late. His was a somber funeral with not a dry eye in sight. Rest in peace, my sweet little red bird, I will forever miss you.

Monday was my first night back teaching classes. On my way out the door I spotted a sign advertising, "Free to a Good Home" for a small golden and white hamster, complete with cage. I glanced up at the calendar to be reminded that it was 7/11. I have said "No" before to hundreds of free pets (including hamsters) but the date seemed like an auspicious sign so I took him home. Apparently "Tater Tot", as he has been named by the kids, was the runt and nearly died but was nursed back to health by a Pet Quarters employee. Fast-forward a few years and I imagine that there will once again come a day where we'll gather to observe this little guy's somber funeral, the kids will be crying and I'll be saying something along the lines of, "Tater Tot was the finest hamster in the whole world and we cherished every day we had with him. We knew from the first day that he was meant to live in our house. At first we nearly all went insane when he rode that squeaky wheel night after night after night, but we learned to live with it and to love him..."