The Itsy Bitsy Spider

Mother was third-generation Irish, many decades removed from that gritty bombastic hard-drinking nay-saying catastrophizing race of people. But she was a Fitzgerald, and maybe that tells you all you need to know about her deepest soul. She was well-educated, well-dressed, even elegant. She always wore a string of shiny pearls and little pumps on her feet, brown in winter and beige in summer. That attention to dress didn’t travel down the leash to me. Being a child of the 60’s it was all denim overalls and sneakers. It was a miracle that I even bathed.

As sophisticated a New York woman as she was though, there were areas of pure Irish superstition that prevailed. Something that she always said was ‘Never kill a spider...it’s very bad luck’. Somehow I took that one on and every time I’d see one I’d get a magazine and a glass tumbler, and scoop it up, and put it outside on the patio. I live in a part of town that’s full of greenery...bushes, palm trees, lush gardens. It’s a real oasis in the heart of L.A., a city that becomes more barren and cement-covered every day. So here I am on the ground floor and at night I can look out and see opossums, skunks, raccoons. I leave a big bowl of water out there for a mean feral cat that comes around, but all the other wildlife come to drink, and sometimes play. I spied a bunch of large raccoons out there one night about a year ago who were actually washing up in that water bowl. One of them jumped right in, overturning it, and I swear, his friends thought it was hilarious. They were running round and round gleefully until they got bored and trotted off.

So you can imagine...I get lots of spiders in here. Some of them were very large, and once there was a jumping spider! As scared shitless as I was, I managed to trap him in a jar and let him loose outside. As I dumped him in a bush I imagined I could hear a tiny ‘thank you’.

My elegant mother died very young and brutally from lung cancer, a lousy way to go. (Is there a good way?) Maybe falling off the porch at age 90. I would vote for that. As much as I’m conflicted about the idea of an afterlife, I can’t quite come to grips with death being the end of it all. What kind of terrible joke that would be. If there really is a god, even for the unreligious like me, wouldn’t he have a better plan? Now, this seemed like a giant long-shot, and I had no expectations of getting satisfaction from this prayer, but I figured I’d give it a try...I had nothing to lose. I got on my knees one day a few years ago and asked god to give me a sign that mother was alright wherever she might be. I offered up this prayer each day for about 2 weeks with nothing coming back...no voices, no sky writing, no burning bushes. I pretty much forgot about it and went about my daily business, distracted by life and feeling more or less okay.

One morning I filled the bathtub as I did each day. I never shower, always bathe...Winston Churchill said, “Why stand when you can sit?”. There’s something about the ritual of sitting in hot water that’s both comforting and cathartic. I pulled the soap off the rack, and right in front of me a daddy longlegs appeared, coming down a thin strand of web very very fast. I tried to catch him, but plop, he went into the water! I tried scooping him out over and over and I kept failing. Finally, I got ahold of one of his skinny legs and pulled him out and placed him on the bath mat on the floor. He was curled up, clearly drowned and dead as a doornail. Oh shit...I killed it...oh no...all that bad luck. I felt just awful. As I sat in the water feeling terrible I figured maybe this god person could help. ‘Please please...if you are real, and can do anything, what about this innocent bug?’ I reached over and got a wad of toilet paper in a last-ditch effort to save him, and started dabbing at the little spider. I watched as he stretched out one skinny leg, and then another, and shook himself off, and pranced away. I sat still for awhile, marveling at the miracle. Who would even believe me if I told them?

A full 24 hours later something occurred to me. What I witnessed was a lesson about death. I watched a resurrection. It was the answer to my question. Mother didn’t die. What I saw as I sat in her hospital room was a kind of trick of the eye. Maybe she got up, shook herself off, and walked right out of there... the luck of the Irish.