The bigger picture

My husband never really paid much attention to nature before he met me. I don't think he really noticed birds, and probably killed the insects that he did notice. He was particularly not fond of spiders. Which makes this little story all the more compelling.

The lightbulb in our laundry room burned out a few nights ago, and neither one of us has had the extra energy it takes to pull a kitchen chair over there to clean off the light fixture and put a new bulb in. Last night I finally said something to Jav, and reminded him about cleaning it out since there were alot of dead bugs inside the light. He replied that he had been putting it off because of the spider that has spun a web all around the light. He said that it was such a clever place for a web, since we get moths in from the garage at night all the time, and he didn't really have the heart to tear it down after all this time.

Excuse me, but who are you and what have you done with my husband?

I agreed to try to very gingerly change out the lightbulb the next day, which was today. Jav stood below me and watched, and while I was carefully trying not to scare the spider, Jav said, "Oliver. That's a good name". I replied, "Yes. Yes it is." I looked to see if this was for the kids' sake, but they were no where to be seen. So I said, "Oliver, I'm really sorry about your web, but there's a whole bunch of it left that hopefully you can piece back together when I'm done." I gave the fixture to Jav and he just stood there looking at it, and I said, "You don't really want to clean it off, do you?" He shook his head. "OK, I guess it will be ok to put it back just like this." Oliver was obviously a little freaked out and stood hunkered down to the side while I finished re-attaching the light.

I checked an hour ago, and he seems to have moved back to the web like all is back to normal. Which Jav was happy to hear.

I have such a strong belief that all life on this earth is life given from God and therefore should be valued. It's not that I won't kill something, but it has to be something harming me or the ones I love before I'll get to that point. And now I guess my husband has seen the light and feels that way too, which makes me so very happy. It probably makes Oliver really happy too!