Why I Never Kill Spiders

Mrs. Smith, my second-grade teacher, sat on a stool at the front of the classroom, as she had every day for weeks, reading to us. I can still remember exactly where I was sitting in that second-grade classroom at Monroe Elementary School in Fountain Valley, California. I was midway back in the room, to Mrs. Smith’s right, my chair turned so I could focus on every word. I did not want to miss a thing. The room was silent except for our teacher’s animated voice. All of the students were spellbound, silent, until we learned that Charlotte was entrusting her babies to Wilbur. She would not be returning home with him. 

I soon noticed the silence of the room had been replaced with the soft sound of children sniffling. My own face was warm and wet. I was devastated.  I could not bear the thought of Wilbur losing his best friend, the friend who sacrificed everything for him. How would he go on? My heart broke for that sweet pig who had become my friend.  How was Wilbur supposed to go on without the one he loved the very most? 

Mrs. Smith closed the book, and with the wisdom of a teacher who understands the true magic of books, she was quiet, giving us a moment to process the loss of our friend Charlotte in whatever way made sense to us. 

I grieved the loss of friendship and love in the only way my eight-year-old self could. I cried.The moment was planted in some deep place where special memories are kept. It was the moment I learned the power of words. With time, the memory took root. Fertilized with books, poems, and stories and well-watered with tears, it eventually grew into a career teaching the power of words. 

I knew that one day, if I ever had a child of my own, we would read Charlotte’s Web together when he or she was in second-grade. Decades later I had a son. From the time he was a baby he was surrounded with books. He teethed on books, bathed with books, and built towers with books. At the end of every day, after a bath and his last period of play, he would crawl into bed, and I would read to him. By the time he was in second-grade, he was already able to read books well beyond his years.

On one of those second-grade nights, I arrived in his room with the copy of Charlotte’s Web that I had checked out from the library for him. I had told him the story many times of how the book had made me cry when I was his age. I told him I cried because I had loved it so much. He was excited to begin this long-promised journey together. We started reading. He met Fern, Wilbur, and Charlotte and of course that horrible Templeton creature. As we read, he silently listened, mesmerized by the story of two best friends. Then came the night I had secretly been dreading, the night that my son would learn of Charlotte’s fate. I even stuck a few tissues into my pockets before going in, just in case. 

I started reading, my voice somewhat somber. I was prepared to comfort my son, but as so often happens, things did not go as expected. This time, when I got to the part where Charlotte was entrusting her eggs to Wilbur, I cried for the second time reading the book. 

Of course, I cried for Wilbur losing his friend, but this time I knew the pain of losing people I loved. Grief was no longer some distant pain I could feel but not completely understand. That night my tears were unexpected, not because the book had changed, but I had. 

I sat there reading that well-loved book to my own child.

And suddenly, I wasn’t crying for Wilbur.

I was crying for Charlotte.

Charlotte would never sit quietly with her children. 

She would never know their faces.

I cried hard. I couldn’t stop crying. Eventually my eight-year-old son quietly slipped the book out of my hand and finished reading the story to me. 

I learned many lessons from E. B. White. I learned that a good friend is a great gift. I learned that books should be reread because, although their words remain the same, we do not.

And I learned never to underestimate a spider.

To this day, I cannot kill one.

Perhaps somewhere inside me is still that eight-year-old girl sitting midway back in Mrs. Smith’s classroom, wondering if this particular spider has a pig somewhere who needs her.