Herman




		WRITE 2 THE HEART Stories that are aimed "Write 2 the Heart" August 29, 2001 Volume 1, Issue 33 Cheryl Speir, Editor, moderator@write2theheart.com -------------------------------------------------------- By subscription only! Welcome to your next issue of "WRITE 2 THE HEART" You are receiving this FREE newsletter because you requested a subscription or a friend generously forwarded it to you. ----------------------------------------------------- Freely forward this ezine to as many people as you wish, just remember to send the entire issue. ----------------------------------------------------- Do you have a story you would like to share with our readers? To submit, send your original story as an email along with a few sentences about yourself to: moderator@write2theheart.com Remember to keep it family friendly. ------------------------------------------------------ Have you ever witnessed a miracle of nature? When you can witness it with your children, it makes it even more memorable. ------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- Herman By: Cheryl Speir --------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------- I walked into the bedroom to put up the newly folded laundry. Looking up, I saw a huge spider web hanging over my oldest sons bunk bed. “Why hasn’t he wiped that thing down,” I wondered. “Oh well, I’ll just get a broom and sweep all the moldings in the house.” I grab the broom out of the kitchen and head for the bedroom. Chris is on the sofa watching TV, looks up and asks me what I am doing. “Spring cleaning,” I tell him. He gets up and follows me into his room. "Wait!" He exclaims just I pull the broom over my shoulder to take a swing at the offending dangler. “That’s where my pet spider, Herman lives.” Now Herman is the name that Chris gave to any creature he found. Over the coarse of his boyhood he had several field mice at different times, a snake, a baby opossum, as well as minnows from ponds and streams, all named Herman. Now there was a spider to join that long list of Herman’s. “A pet spider, Chris,” I asked with just a wee bit of sarcasm and disbelief in my voice. “That’s right,” he proudly informed me. “He comes out at night just as I go to bed and I pet him on his back.” “How come I never see him? I come in every night." “That’s because the light is on, he comes out when you turn off the light as you leave.” Ok, my curiosity is piqued. I leave the web with full intentions of checking this out tonight. As I walked into the bedroom that night, I flip off the light. I begin the nightly ritual of kissing foreheads and praying with my four sons. When I get to Chris’ bed, he suddenly sits up and reaches for the ceiling. “See mom, here’s Herman.” Sure enough, the light from the front porch is enough for me to see a large black spider come out of a crack and walk to the middle of the web. Chris reaches up and gently touches him on the back and the arachnid doesn’t seem to mind. Herman stays. Each night, Chris would reach for the ceiling; touch the spider on the back and say, “Goodnight Herman.” One morning, Chris came to the breakfast table excited. “Guess what! Herman is not a Herman but a Hermee.” “How do you know this?” I asked. “What is a Hermee?” “A Hermee is a female. Last night a male spider came to the web. When she came out they danced for a while then they mated. Guess what happened next? She killed him!” All this came tumbling out of his mouth with no pause for questions to be answered. “How do you know they mated?” I asked in innocence. “Mo-om,” He said, as only a kid can when they think their parent is a complete idiot. All I could think to say was, “Oh.” After that, we continually received Hermee updates. She was repairing her web; she had created an egg sack and was watching over it. One morning Chris called everyone to hurry and come see, the eggs were hatching! Sure enough, there were tiny specks crawling out of the sack. Many just crawled onto the web and stayed. Many made a loop of their own web material right before our eyes and sailed through the house on the air currents created by our ceiling fans. It looked like spider confetti. There have been many times when I look back on raising my sons that I am so glad I allowed them to witness God’s creation first hand. You can learn about spiders in a textbook, but experiencing it is so much better. If I had been too overeager to spring clean, we would have missed the miracle of Herman/Hermee. Cheryl Speir moderator@write2theheart.com -------------------------------------------------------- Cheryl is the editor of Write 2 the Heart. She is currently working on several writing projects including a cookbook. -------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------- FROM OUR READERS -------------------------------------------------------- Dear Cheryl, I'll be praying for your dear niece, Rebecca, and her family. Poor dear little girl. May the Lord be with her. Love & Hugs, Pat ** I would like for you to let Rebecca know I am thinking about her every day and praying for her recovery, thank you for letting us know of her need to be prayed for. Dave Thanks Pat for reminding us to find God's secret place daily. Jill ** Every one, lift Pat Bode in prayer, the next day after her poem was published here, she found herself in the hospital having emergency surgery. She is doing well. Cheryl --------------------------------------------------------- Cheryl's Corner I want to thank everyone who prayed for and wrote to my niece Rebecca. Unfortunately she did not have her surgery at that time. She was taken into the operating room, anesthetized, then brought out and placed in ICU. Seems there was an accident in the operating room that left her with a knot and gash on the back of her head. She has just been released from the hospital and will have to go through this again soon. Please keep her and her family in your prayers, this has been a traumatic time for them. In deep gratitude, Cheryl --------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2001 Write 2 the Heart Nothing may be reproduced or published without the written permission of the individual author or copyright owner. ------------------------------------------------------------ All subscriptions sent to your email free of charge.