Operation: Lionfish

It is with a broken heart that I write that Otto died yesterday.  Through my tears, as I held him in my arms and felt his tiny heart beat for the last time, I promised myself that I would write him a fitting epitaph.  This is my effort. Otto came into our lives as a tiny furball Amy found in our local pet store in Chicago.  She knew instantly that he would be ours, and called me from the pet store.  Amy (sobbing): "Can we get a puppy?"  Randy: "Where are you?"  A: (sobbing) "The pet store."  R: "Put down the puppy and we can talk about it when I get home."  A: (sobbing) "But what if someone buys him before we get back?"  R: "If he is meant to be ours, he will still be there."  I was certain I would come home to a new puppy in the house. We went back to the pet store the next day and Otto was still there.  When I met him in the sea of other puppies at the store, he was the only one that wasn't barking.  Instead, he calm...