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Chadwick
10/16/03
Chadwick
We had him for 11 years, after my brother Andrew found him wandering in front of the firing line at a black powder shoot at our sportsman's club. Andrew bravely saved him, and at the time, little Chaddy was put into a styrofoam coffee cup. He fit into the bottom perfectly, with enough elbow room to crawl around. He was but an inch long. He grew to be robust and strong (at least six inches!), although he struggled with obesity for much of his adult life. We tried to curb this by monitoring his pellet intake regularly, and therefore, despite his torubles, he lived a fairly active lifestyle. He spent his adolescent years with his childhood friend and adopted brother, Gamera. Gamera and Chaddy had their share of tiffs, but only over petty things - lettuce shreds, warm rocks, prime space under the heat lamp - and even these were usually resolved by the time the lamp went out at 9 PM. They slept on their little platform together. To the Brothers T, every day, it seemed, was a childhood sleepover. Sadly, Gamera (who was at least a year older than Chaddy and an inch taller) passed away last year and Chaddy felt strangely alone in his dwelling. Somehow he moved on, though, and after grieving for a month or so, he seemed to be coping with the loss. Chadwick lived out his retirement years in the company of his loving family.
Chadwick The Turtle passed away unexpectedly this morning, at the bottom of a watery grave in his tank. It was a peaceful and quiet passing, and I'm pleased to say that he looks very natural at the moment. RIP, Chaddy.
10 comments
:( i'm sorry to hear about Chadwick. :( when my goldfish (who'd swim up to the top of the tank and let me PET him) died, I buried him in a velvet-covered box (it was a watch box ;p ) in the snow-on-the-mountain flowerbed. :'(
*can't quit laughing over Ravioli the Anole*
your family cracks me up, cass.
Where will you bury him? I buried my first and last goldfish under a campfire.
Yes. He was a good little turtle. I'm not sure where he was buried, actually. I have been gone in school and work all day today, and he was buried whilst I was away, Christina. :/ sigh...makes me miss the 70 or so pet turtles i'd had up till a few years ago...they all had names, and 3/4ths of them moved 3 hours away when we moved too. My dad is always awesome about stuff like that.over half of them I had for nearly 9 years. Many a show and tell in elementry school were they present for. I had lizards too. My dad and I caught these fence lizards at church. I had them for 5 years or so...well, at least I know I'm not the only kid to have had pet reptiles as such...
I feel your pain, Cassandra ;'( Sorry, SB. :( Yeah. I'm bummin. Chaddy was a good doobie in his day. We used to have a lizard too, Ravioli the Anole. He was great too. Heh, I had like, 3 Green Anoles. They were all mean so I didn't name them. Which is good, because the Fence Lizard ate like, two of them, heh. I'm sorry to hear of his parting.
I for one am going to miss Chadwick :( Yeah. Me too. I'm almost ashamed I knew him - mostly because of my own actions, not because of his. I knew him for a while. I thought it was fun to poke my finger at him and see him paddle and bump into the wall cuz he thought I was a worm. (That was the extent of our relationship.) I find myself wondering, now, if we could have had more. To him, I was just a worm. To me, he was a turtle obsessed with my pointer finger. Maybe I should have tried harder to overcome the differences between us. Not shun him in groups because he was bald. I wonder if, up in turtle-heaven, he came to the knowledge that paddling after imaginary worms, when you have perfectly good flakes scattered about like ground falling from heaven on the dewyness, ought not to be one's main focus in the swim of life. Sometimes I'd see those flakes, turned to mush in the evening, and wonder why he didn't see all that he was wasting. Shame on my own head, I just looked at the absurdity of it and laughed. It was too difficult to think about it for long. Looking back, I see that I was afraid he couldn't be towed out of his own comfortable existance. Maybe what he needed is someone who would encourage and be a truer friend, to help him overcome those feelings that came over when all he could see was that glorious pinkness appearing out of the mist in front of him. Chadwick. I believe I failed him. I hope somehow, wherever he went, he realizes all these things, and forgives me anyway. Maybe even now he's looking over from wherever, resting on warmer rocks, free from the maddening slime of dirty aquariums, and thinking thoughts of peace towards us all. I hope I've learned something from him. I hope we all have. May his memory be a banner to those of us who have manna yet to gather... 
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