R.I.P. George and Gracie

George and Gracie are dead. I only met them Christmas Eve. They were a pair of hermit crabs that a friend gave to her son. They were indirect victims of the Boston cold, even though Kirk had moved their tank to a warmer place.

As a dog lover and a cat liker, I never thought of hermit crabs as having personalities. No one takes a hermit crab for a walk (advantage on a rainy night, disadvantage on a beautiful day) nor do they jump in your lap and purr. How surprised I was to discover hermit crabs exhibit character. George when you tapped on the aquarium ran to the tapping. Gracie was more timid. Sure, it was sexual stereotyping to call the braver one George and the more timid Gracie.

I learned of their demise through Kirk’s blog www.kisreal.com/. He said they deserved better than they got.

Pet hermit crabs do not have a great number of choices in life aside from shell selection. Like all pets they are totally dependent on the kindness of their owners. In fact they only get shell selection if given shells. But as humans we too are dependent on forces out of our control.

As much as we plan to stay at a certain job, a layoff changes those plans. An unexpected pregnancy has consequences, a fire can destroy our homes, a car accident may leave us injured. Few of us get up in the morning and think, “How wonderful, I want a disaster, today, which one will I choose.” All we can do is react. Hopefully we will go from reacting to acting to rebuild our lives with dignity.

We had a terrible change of plans on 9/11. When we attacked Afghanistan we could have captured Bin Laden. We could have helped the Afghanis far more than we did. Yes we secured Kabul, yes we did have an election. Instead of spending billions destroying Iraq, we could have spent a lot less building hospitals, schools and an infrastructure in Afghanistan. As an ordinary citizen, I cannot control what my government does, although I can write letters, call congressmen, attend demonstration, sign petitions.

The election is coming in Iraq. We’ve been told it will bring democracy in Iraq. I just hope it doesn’t end like George and Gracie for we have about as much control over the events there as those two hermit crabs.