February 17, 2021
by Mary Clifford Morrell
After almost a year of dealing with a pandemic that has brought monumental loss, anxiety, and, often, a brooding melancholy that is hard to shake, it sometimes seems hard to find the blessings.
Now, for many, bad weather is added into the mix, limiting trips even to the corner drug store or local restaurant for pick up.
I know I’ve been feeling out of sorts for a while and resenting my homebound state, like my friend who said the only trip outside she can look forward to is a trip to the mailbox, and that’s been empty.
But then I decided to take the garbage out to the deck, though it was covered with wind-blown snow. At least I would get a few minutes of fresh air. What I also got was a run-in with a very large spider, hanging down from a single line of the web.
In the warmer weather, we seem to have an overabundance of spiders, but I’m not accustomed to seeing them when there's frost on the windows. His unexpected appearance reminded me of Charlotte, the compassionate, intelligent spider of the well-loved children’s book “Charlotte’s Web.”
For some reason, I never read the story until I was an adult, and I still got weepy, especially when Charlotte, who is going to die, says to Wilbur, the pig, “You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s life anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps, I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can use a little of that.”
What’s life anyway? It’s an age-old question.
There seem to be days when we just can’t find an answer, when things seem so overwhelming that we wonder why we are here in the first place. But then, in those moments when we are able to lift up someone’s life a trifle, or when our lives have been enriched by someone else, we know, like Charlotte, that we are here for each other.
Surely, if God has given us any amazing gifts, the gift of friends is one of the best, especially the kind that lasts a lifetime; the kind that is genuine and encourages you to do the things you need to do to live life with joy and courage and faith.
Scriptures say it best: “A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter; he that has found one has found a treasure. There is nothing so precious as a faithful friend, and no scales can measure his excellence. A faithful friend is an elixir of life…” (Sirach 6:14-16).
Mary Regina Morrell is a Catholic journalist, author, and syndicated columnist who has served the dioceses of Metuchen and Trenton, New Jersey, and RENEW International in the areas of catechesis and communication.