Susie Ma’am said this was one of her favorites earlier this summer, so I reprint it on a day I write about homesickness to keep the mood light!

Into each life, some rain will fall.

Life is not without its challenges or sad moments.

Such was the passing of “Spider”.

The girls of cabin 2 (having finished 7th grade) deemed it necessary to commemorate the passing of “Spider”.

Sadly, none of the campers really felt like they truly knew him/her/it. What were Spider’s dreams? Perhaps none of us will ever know.

How old was Spider? This important detail was unavailable to our memorialists.

What took Spider from us so prematurely? The answer is not clear in the tombstone, but we perhaps have a clue that the passing was not entirely of natural causes.

We have the exact minute of death.

While I am not an entomological pathologist, I think this detail enables me to rule out “natural causes”. I doubt that Spider slipped into the good, good night after a long life of web-spinning and fly-eating. My educated guess is that Spider found himself on the wrong side of a Nike.

On the bright side, he/she/it encountered the Nike (or whatever other means of terminus) in the presence of young women who either 1) have a deep sense of compassion or 2) a strange sense of humor.

We cannot rule out both.

Here’s to you Spider – we hardly knew ye.

Steve Sir