“I like her,” I told my husband, much to his surprise. Though I was not typically a fan of arachnids, the large, colorful spider claiming a corner of our front porch was an exception.
Shortly after we welcomed our first baby to the world in late August, she showed up.
I often rocked on our porch to soothe our newborn and get some fresh air. As I shushed my daughter and admired the spider’s growing web, I thought back to the story my mother, a librarian by trade, read to me as a little girl: Charlotte’s Web. Charlotte, a barn spider, befriends Wilbur the pig and cunningly saves him from becoming bacon by writing messages with her web.
Unbeknownst to me, my husband, in his words, “relocated her” when her web started interfering with the porch furniture. I surprised myself this time with my disappointment.
A few days later, though, she was back. This time, my eyes caught her unmistakable markings in a brand new web centered outside our kitchen window above the sink.
“I’m still here!” she seemed to say as I added another dirty bottle to the growing collection.
I, like Wilbur, was forming an unlikely friendship.
Even when we returned from my parents’ house, where we awaited power restoration from Hurricane Helene, our hearts heavy from our region’s destruction, she remained firmly in her growing web.
After some research, I discovered she was a “Joro spider,” a harmless species native to East Asia that has been populating the East Coast and South in recent years while making quite the news splash.
A couple of weeks ago, I returned to work, joining the “mom force” of TealHaus, a nickname we’ve given ourselves as an efficient group of marketers and moms—one I’m glad to identify with now fully. Coincidentally, during my first week back, I noticed my spider was gone.
My suspicion (and Google) tells me she most likely died during the first freeze of the year.
I’d like to believe my spider knew her work here was complete. Our feet were now a bit more firmly planted in parenthood, our schedules slowly rejoining the outside world, and our hearts a little steadier.
Our spider quietly bore witness to so much—yes, the exhaustion of those early tender days, but also the meals dropped on our doorstep, hugs from friends, and phone calls from loved ones, all giving us a new understanding of “the village.”
Like Charlotte, who dies only after ensuring Wilbur’s future, the writing on the web was saying we’d be just fine.
-Virginia
*Photo credits: Virginia Tech News
