You have to know that Mom was the embodiment of Mother Nature. She loved all animals, and they loved her. I think it was her mission in life to feed them all. It would never have occurred to her to be afraid of any creature, or that anyone could be in danger from any animal.

To give you an idea, when I was little, mom got to know a street performer who did a routine with a live bear. Naturally, the bear instantly loved her. She visited often and encouraged me to play with it. What could be cuter? Since I was under her protection, I couldn’t have been safer. Had there been a T-Rex around, she would have handed me over and I’d have been fine.

Anyway, if Mom had come on our shark adventure, the night before, she would have gone to every grocery store in reach and bought every fish she could find. Then she’d stay up late chopping them up. The next day, she would have stuffed her bathing suit with 50 pounds of raw fish while trying to talk us all into doing the same (and we would have said a loud, “NO!” much to her irritation).

Then she would have waddled virtuously on the boat knowing that she was not technically breaking any rules (the brochure in fact did not forbid bringing real fish bits on board). Then, she would have sat very still and straight to keep the fish from slithering out from inside her overstuffed suit. Inevitably, some would have escaped, and we would all have had to do our best to keep them hidden from the captain, probably by slipping them inside our own suits after all.

Meanwhile, the instant Mom stepped on the boat, sharks from miles around would sense that their most beloved person in the world was coming to visit. Instead of the 12 sharks we actually saw, we would have had hundreds all pushing to be near Mom.

Once in the shark cage and oblivious to the panic of the other tourists, Mom would have been happily reaching into her swimsuit for fish and petting and feeding all the sharks she could. Of course, she wouldn’t have been able to speak with a snorkel in her mouth, but she would have used hand gestures and telepathy to tell them to stop being greedy and stop shoving and that they were all beautiful and that she wanted to take them all home. In the back of her mind she would have been scheming the whole time about how to actually do this.

Because of the sheer number of sharks, the cage would have been banged around and dented. Everyone else would have long ago fled up the ladder into the boat for safety. But the sharks would be under Mom’s spell and happily floating belly up to be petted in perfect bliss. Mom would be leaning out of the cage as far as she possibly could to pet them all. Eventually, the captain would have to go down himself to get her out.

Back on board, Mom would eagerly ask the captain if he had any more fish guts to share because the “poor sharks are so hungry.” She would be utterly baffled as to why the captain didn’t and why no one else wanted to go back down and why we were racing back to land at top speed with a huge shiver of sharks chasing the boat.

Maybe that’s why the good Lord took her when He did. He needed to spare everyone from the experience of swimming with the sharks and Mom.

Anneli Byrd is an academic adviser in Weber State University’s General Studies and Exploratory advising.