From death to birth: the true story of my turtle.

Early shabbos morning I awoke to find that one of my two turtles appeared to have died. Anyone who has kept pet turtles will tell you that their languid, lazy reputation is mostly undeserved and that relative to the stereotypes, they are pretty active. My two turtles particularly like to climb on top of each other and peek out of their tank from the perch afforded by the other’s shell. In fact, that’s about the only thing I've recently see them do. But then, who am I to question a turtle’s perception of fun.

As I sat there tapping and prodding the tank, trying to elicit a reaction of any sort from the turtle, a million thoughts ran through my head. First I wondered how had I been such a neglectful pet-keeper to not have noticed how little the turtles had been eating recently. I berated myself for forgetting to add the recommended dechlorinating tablets to the tank, wondering if that's what killed it. Then I tried to plan the next step—getting rid of the animal. Where do city kids bury their deceased pets? In central park? In the subway station? And speaking of kids, how was I going to break the tragic news to the turtle’s rightful owner—my innocent little 3 year old girl?

The panic set in. It occurred to me how completely unequipped I am in dealing with heavy parenting issues, such as teaching a child about the end of life. Luckily though, my daughter’s preschool has done a wonderful job introducing the concepts of death and destruction. Between the parsha and the holidays, my kid has no lack of violence and death in her repertoire. If you were to casually leaf through her weekly coloring sheets, these are the pictures you’d see: (1) little boy Avraham bashing his father’s idols (who, in the cartoonish mess, look eerily similar to the humans in the story) with a baseball bat, (2) Eisav, looking like a beast, biting into his twin brother’s neck, (3) graphic images of the 10 plagues, including Egyptians choking on frogs, crying out in pain because of bloody boils, and being attacked by beasts, and (4) the violent death du jour—Greek soldiers tumbling off elephants with 8 foot long spears sticking through their bodies.

I wasn’t so sure this overexposure to death and violence made my job easier—would she buy into the story of a turtle who went to sleep and simply didn’t wake up, or would I have to make up a more gruesome scenario to suit her toddler fancy? In any event it was shabbos, so I’d deal with the situation later...

...later, the turtle was no longer dead. Over shabbos, it had walked across the tank and repositioned itself comfortably under the side of a large rock (possibly to avoid my annoying prodding). Al ha’nisim! I quickly googled “turtle care”, determined to find out what could be causing the turtle to behave this way. What I found proved to be even more dismal than death. My turtle is probably pregnant. Mating turtles eat poorly, spend a lot of time climbing on each other’s backs, after which the female hides herself until she lays the eggs. That explains everything!

The truth is, the last thing I need now is a half dozen more reptile hatchlings! But even worse is the inevitable question that follows… “Mommy, how are babies made?” Once again I am reminded of how completely unequipped I am in dealing with heavy parenting issues, such as teaching a child about the beginning of life. No thanks to the schools, who do a great job of steering very clear of this topic, my job will be much harder this time around.