My sweet baby boy. I never imagined a lizard would capture my heart. I only knew you for one year and your great ascension has hurt me so deeply.

Sharky, my baby boy, I have cried almost nonstop since the tragic accident last Tuesday. You hung in there for about 36 ish hours until your creator called you back home a little after three in the morning, April 30th 2026.

You were only 9 years old. In Iguana years you were just barely entering your middle ages. So much amazing life lived already, but still so much more life to live. You were supposed to be with us til you reached 20 – 25 years of age, or so we thought.

There is some phenomenon about the truly great ones who almost never seem to live a long time. It’s true with people and with other creatures. We have plenty of people in the world with amazing legacies who ascended seemingly far too soon to our human minds. How many lizards can say they truly have an amazing legacy?

You were absolutely adored by many thousands of people. Everyone who has ever been fortunate enough to be in your presence… Sharky you brought real joy to so many people I can’t possibly keep count. Most people can’t say they have a legacy as positively impactful as yours. Now it is your memory that will continue to bring joy to people and so many tears to people who loved you, especially Resa and I.

Resa made me an Iguana daddy. To be honest, at first I had no idea if I could become emotionally attached to a lizard the same way I have been with cats and dogs in the past. When I first saw you, you brought a real smile to my face. We hit it off right away and I found myself loving a reptile for the first time in my life.

It feels so unreal to me that I will never see you again. It was just yesterday morning you achieved your great ascension after a day and a half of that difficult waiting period to find out if you would be alright, or not. There was so much hope and so many small indicators during that time that indicated you were going to be alright after an eventual surgery and a long recovery road. I so desperately wanted that first critical 48 hours to swing in a positive direction but sadly for us, amazing for you, you ascended back to your creator.

It was sad for us for obvious reasons, but amazing for you because you have nothing at all to worry about anymore. Pain, suffering, and worry is reserved for us who have not achieved ascension yet. You’re in Heaven. You lived an amazing 9 years on planet earth and as amazing as your 9 years here was, you’re doing even more amazing in the only place where it’s even possible to be doing more amazing. It’s us who are still here who are in pain.

I can’t believe I’ll never see you again, or cuddle you, or watch you eat, or hand feed you your favorite foods, or see you bring joy to peoples faces, or see you become the instant star of an entire reptile expo. Seriously, we always had the most popular table because of you. You are a magical creature. There is no other creature like you. You are truly special. You were so great you organically created an unparalleled legacy without even intending to. You were so magical you weren’t supposed to live to be an old man.

I so badly want to open my eyes in the morning and see you sun bathing in the window. I so badly want to see you looking onto the baby iguanas with so much fascination. I so badly want to see you grazing again in the yard eating dandelions and sun bathing with your eyes half closed or all the way closed. This just isn’t fair. My last memory of you, just before the tragic terrible accident, was watching you in the yard just living your best life snacking on dandelions and sunning while your momma and I worked in the garden. That’s how I’m going to remember you. As much as I love all my other memories of you, I think most of all my favorite memories of you was just watching you smile while intensely enjoying life. The way you enjoyed life was not fancy. It was similar to a cat. You just wanted to be comfortable, sleep, be petted, and eat your favorite foods especially grapes, bananas, and greens.

I’ll miss your beautiful colors, your calm demeanor, your almost human looking lips, a seemingly permanent smile you always had on your face, how you respond to human touch, how you never seemed to have a bad day, ever. You are so magical to me. You inspire me to be a better creature. I love you more than most people. Your great ascension has hit me so hard. My whole face, especially my sinus cavity, is puffy and hurts because I’ve been crying so much. I was telling your momma this morning that this is the toughest stuff that life has to dish at us.

I guess it hurts so badly for a combination of reasons. You were barely entering your middle ages, you were perfectly healthy, the thought of any suffering you might have experienced following the first one hour of the tragic accident before receiving your powerful pain medications, and just the fact we know we will never get to experience having you again until we make our final ascension. It’s difficult not to think of these things and not to play particular short moments on an endless loop of the worst moment. I have to comfort myself and your momma with the truth. The truth is your suffering was extremely short lived and at the most for only one single hour. In that one hour I ran red lights and reached speeds as high as 102 mpg in my Kia Soul. I was careful not to get pulled over which would have been an awful time delay when seconds really mattered. I was careful not to get into an accident of course and endanger other innocent people on the road. Mission accomplished.

During that one hour you were calm ninety nine point nine percent of the time. There were maybe two moments where you started flailing a bit for only a couple seconds at a time. I think it was probably more reflective rather than conscious thought but I am really not sure. I know that you were completely calm otherwise. Once you got your heavy pain meds going I know you were right back to being as comfortable again as you were just before your accident, and all the way up to your ascension.

When we got the phone call informing us that you passed away, my only care in the world was if you passed peacefully and comfortably in your sleep. The answer was a definite yes. You were thankfully resting peacefully and comfortably the whole time with the exception of that first hour. When you weigh that one hour, of which ninety nine point nine percent of the time you were calm, against the rest of your nine years of an amazing charmed life you lived, that’s pretty amazing. I don’t even know of a single person who could say that. I have to keep reminding myself and your momma of these things because it’s too easy to dwell on the sad part even though the truth is in totality you lived an amazing happy life. You were simply too great for your creator to allow you to stay with us until you lived to be an old man.  One could attempt an argument that you ascended early because of a tragic accident but isn’t it curious that’s exactly how so many other greats ascended at a young age, too?   Your needed where you are at now for eternity.

You lived an abundantly happy life. You positively touched so many thousands of people. The hurt we feel in your passing and your great ascension can only be a natural testament to how much you were loved in life and now in the wake of your great ascension. I felt the same way when my parents passed away. The hurt was so great that it could only be a testament. I still think about them daily and it’s been so many years now. I have no doubt I will think of you daily for the rest of my life. Especially while this is still so fresh and seemingly unreal I have to keep reminding myself and your momma of the truths I’ve mentioned here. Maybe someday I’ll open up publicly about your tragic accident. I just can’t yet because I think it’s the part that makes it the most painful. The thing about a tragedy is it does not care what’s going on, what plans you might have, it’s randomness, it’s unexpectedness etc. There is always going to be the next tragedy, the next trauma, the next whatever it is somewhere in the future. We were careful, but not careful enough in the right way at the exact moment that we needed to be. In that exact moment it was a sheer fluke.  What were the odds??? And even still, we were careful in that exact moment tragedy struck but we missed just one something and your momma and I are so sorry Sharky.

I would bet anything that if you could talk to us in your own way from where you are at right now you would tell us not to worry. You’d tell us you know it was an accident and that you always felt loved. You’d tell us you truly lived an amazing magical life. You would unquestionably comfort us and make us happy again just as you always did. You would also go on to tell us, perhaps you’d open with this, that there was hardly a transition from bathing in the sun to your great ascension, you hardly felt any pain and if you did it was extremely short lived within that first hour but only for a second or two in that first hour. The accident happened so quickly, you would tell us, that you never even knew what happened. You didn’t even see it coming. One moment you were high on life sun bathing and the next you were high on life from some amazing drugs. It was severe head trauma you passed away from. The rest of your body was perfectly fine. If it was any area of your body other than your head I think the pain and suffering would have been far worse. The good thing about that kind of a head injury is it takes you out of consciousness and out of feeling pain and suffering to one extent or another if not entirely. Between that and the strong pain meds, I know you want us to know not to worry. You simply transitioned from one moment to the next with minimal pain. It’s important that I hear you talking to us from where you are now. You want us to be happy as you were in life and not to worry about you. The pain and suffering truly is for the physical living and that is our problem, no yours. It’s not for you anymore, and even here on earth you never experienced a life or pain or suffering.

I am so inspired by you Sharky. We are still going to hurt, I am sorry about that because I know you don’t want that, but we cannot help it. We will certainly find happiness again, perhaps beginning this weekend on a getaway we are taking, and you are a huge motivator for that. Just please understand we need time to cope and to mourn a loss to us that is immeasurable.

One year was not enough for me. I suspect no amount of time no matter how many years would be enough. But, when it’s seemingly before your time and how it happened, it sure makes the pain and hurt worse for us. I know 5 years was not enough time for your momma either.

Your first four years were in a Zoo in Florida, and I believe your origins are El Salvador before you were shipped to a zoo in Florida. Florida has banned the breeding and keeping of Iguanas years ago which has a lot to do with being adopted by your momma five years ago. She tells me when she worked at the zoo there, she would always take her breaks and spend that time with you. She would crawl into your cage to feed you every day on her break and you and her formed this bond right from the beginning. Your keeper asked Resa if she would like to adopt you. Without hesitation she said, “Hell yeah”.

I’m sure there will be another Iguana we will grow attached to but there will never be another Sharky. You were and are truly special and there will certainly never be another. A lot of Iguanas are moody, mean, temperamental, and just over all not as joyous and as infectiously happy as you. It’s not possible to express in words how magical you were and will always be Sharky.

I miss you buddy. I love you so much and I always will. I’ve shed so many tears and I’m sure more are coming in random moments ahead. When I ascend, I cannot wait to see you. I have a short list of people and other creatures that I can’t wait to see again. Most of all that list consists of my parents, past pets Tigra and Nugget, and now you. Until then I still have the rest of my life here on earth to live. I’m 48. I’ll be 49 this July 19th, 2026.

I believe the best way to honor you, and the others who have and will ascend before I do, is to live my own best life. There is going to be sadness, pain, and suffering because that is part of the deal it seems for life on earth but I’m going to do my best to keep that in an emotionally healthy balance because I truly do want to make you happy to see us happy. For now though, my heart is really broken and shattered. Every day changes a person in small unnoticeable ways.   Some days, some events, create major changes in us.   I know I will never be the same again.  To honor you my change is going to be a continuous positive evolution.

You will live forever.  Let me count the ways.. In our hearts, in the ways you positively affected so many thousands of people, the ripple effects that will last and spread wider for as long as there is life on earth, and you will certainly live forever in your new Heaven for Eternity.  I cannot wait to see you again whenever my time comes.

I love you buddy.   

Tom

 

p.s.  Some interesting numbers to observe.  You were born approximately the same year my dad died, 2017.   You were adopted around the time my mom died which was August 1st 2020 or a little bit after that maybe.  You lived here on earth for nine years.  My dad died nine years ago.  I don’t know if that means anything but it’s interesting.