World's Meanest Dad

The other day, Mrs. BigKat and I were about to have lunch. LilKat2 had already eaten, so he was off having fun coloring. We sat down together and started praying. During the middle of our prayer, LilKat2 runs over to me and starts yelling at me, 'Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!' I stopped praying and I told LilKat2 sternly that he needs to be more patient and to wait until we were done praying before he said whatever it was that he wanted to say.
He immediately started talking again, so I interrupted him and again (this time a little more sternly) told him that he needed to be patient and wait until we were done. He got a very sad look on his face, but waited patiently.
When we finished praying, I looked at LilKat2 and asked him what it was that he wanted. His lip was quivering and tears were starting to roll down his cheeks.
Then he said 'I want you to pray for my fish that died.'

Ok...I'm officially the World's Meanest Dad...LilKat2's fish had died not too long ago, and he asks me to pray about that pretty much every night at bedtime. I've used that time to talk to him about death in general as well as the life in Heaven that we look forward to as Christians. I try and make sure that he knows that we're praying that God will take care of him in his time of sadness and that we're not praying for the fish. It's been on his mind a lot and I probably should've remembered...

Anyhow, immediately after he was able to make his request, the full on cry started. I gave him a big hug and apologized about a million times and told him that I should have let him talk to us and it was all my fault. After a couple of minutes of hugging and crying, we were able to pray together about his fish. Then he went off to go color again, feeling a little bit better.
As Mrs. BigKat and I started to eat lunch, I looked down at my sweatshirt. The front was covered with tiny wet spots...teary reminders of the magnitude of my meanness.

But the good news is that he came in to visit me in my office just now. And in his hands was a brand new red fish!