Sorrow and Loss

Some Novembers are better than others; this one has been a hard one.  A year ago, Remembrance day, my grandmother died.  We had three deaths at church in a week.  One of them was one I didn't expect at all--her breast cancer had returned, but she had been given about three years.  She lasted two months.  To finish off that, our fish is currently breathing his last.  I will be surprised if he lasts the night. 

Snape has been with us since my youngest was four.   He was named Snape after the Harry Potter character, that first year the book was published, because he ate nearly all the other fish that shared his tank in the first year.  After the second year, we gave up keeping other fish with him.  For the last five years, he has regularly followed us along the glass of his tank every morning, giving us the evil 'feed me' glare.  There is nothing quite like sitting to drink your coffee, and wondering what is looking at  you, only to realize that it is your fish.  He has been our companion through many ups and downs.  And, it will be hard to lose him.

I shouldn't complain--he is nearly eleven years old, and his type of cyclid rarely lives longer than 8 years.  But, seriously, losing him will be hard.  We plan to get other fish (in fact, we were looking at other fish his size, knowing that he was close to elderly and probably wasn't going to last past Christmas), but knowing that and watching it happen are just different experiences.

So, here's to the house cup, and all that I haven't knit for this month.  Here is my sweater, and how far I've gotten.  I'm not going to finish my mitten--I'm having a hard time focusing because of my fish.  And, it isn't an excuse that I want to post on the cup, somehow.