What to Do When a Pet Turtle Passes Away? Making Soup, Burial, or Keeping the Shell as a Memento—Which Farewell is Right for You?

A friend’s large spotted turtle, which he had raised for 15 years, fell from the balcony and died on the second day after moving into a new home. I comforted my friend, saying, “Your turtle warded off a disaster for you.” To my surprise, my friend made the turtle into a soup that very night, which left my jaw on the floor.

If the turtle you carefully raised accidentally passed away, what would you do? Would you bury it carefully, heat up the pot and add oil, or make it into a craftwork and keep the shell as a memento? A turtle raised for 15 years—is it family or an ingredient?

The Complicated Emotions Behind Making Turtle Soup

My friend said that on the night he made the turtle soup, he stared at the steam rising from the clay pot for a long time, lost in thought. The turtle shell bobbed gently in the boiling water, just like the countless times he had changed the water for the turtle, leaning over the edge of the tank to watch it paddle. I suddenly remembered the photos on my friend’s Moments feed of the turtle stretching its neck out when its back was warm from the sun; I remembered his earnestness when, before a business trip, he repeatedly instructed his roommate, “Feed it dried shrimp once every three days, don’t put in too much”; I remembered his smile when he said, “This turtle has been with me longer than my girlfriend.”

What does 15 years mean? It’s enough time for a baby to grow into a teenager, enough for a city to be completely transformed, enough for a turtle to grow from palm-sized to filling an entire basin. The turtle saw my friend’s cramped living situation in a rented room right after graduation, saw him crying while holding the turtle tank after a breakup, saw him celebrate a promotion by buying the most expensive turtle food—these fragmented moments of time had long since simmered a “pet” into family.

But in the end, my friend still set up the pot. Perhaps in his view, it was “letting it accompany me in another way”; or perhaps it was as the older generation says, “for a living creature to be eaten after it passes is a way of honoring the bond”; or maybe, when faced with the sudden disappearance of a life you’ve spent day and night with, people tend to fall into a kind of frantic sense of ritual—as if doing something could offset a bit of that hollow ache.

Different Farewells, the Same Cherished Memories

This reminds me of the old man in my neighborhood who was always walking his old dog. The day the dog passed, the old man used the cardboard box that once held dog food to bury the dog on the lawn they frequented, and he even stuck in a wooden sign that read “Beibei’s Grave.” Every time he passes by, the old man squats down and mutters a few words, just like before.

Then there’s my colleague. After her hamster died, she found a delicate little box, lined it with the cotton bedding the hamster had slept on, and buried it under the osmanthus tree downstairs. “When the flowers bloom next year, it will be able to smell the fragrance,” my colleague said, her eyes shining.

In truth, how can there be a standard answer? Some people feel that “to be laid to rest” is the final act of gentleness, some believe that “keeping the shell as a memento” can preserve a keepsake, and some, like my friend, say goodbye in a way that seems “hardcore” to outsiders. What’s important is that the days spent together truly existed; those moments of worrying for and delighting in a pet were long ago etched into life itself.

So, no matter which way of saying goodbye you choose, as long as you once treated that bond with sincerity, that’s enough. After all, the meaning of life has never been about the form in which it ends, but about how passionately we cherished it while it existed. What about you? If it were you, how would you say goodbye to this “old companion”?