When we came across their huddled masses a second time we knew a natural ritual was at hand.  Each spring the daddy longlegs in the hill country forest of Central Texas cluster under man-made benches and rock ledges; a gathering of stringy legs and wee bodies.  They gently sway, as one, to a song we could not hear.

My daughter convinces one to scurry onto her palm before she transfers it to my shirt.  She knows I was terrified of spiders as a child, except for the daddy longlegs who clung to the black bricks on the outside of my house.  This one climbs into my armpit looking for another shaded place to gather with its buddies.

“Can we take it home mom?  I’ll hold him the whole way.” She promises.  The drive is a little more than an hour…in a mini-van…with more nooks and crannies than an antique shop.

“And if you lose it you know it will die.” I say obviously excited by the idea of finding skeletal spider remains in the glove box.

“Aaaah Mom! I’ll find it if I drop him.”

“And how would you feel if some giant came along, grabbed you up, and hauled you away in a rag tag Mazda spaceship?  How would you like to be snatched up at your reunion?”

My son pipes in, “Well that’s what you’re doing to us.  You’re moving us away from our friends to the other side of the world (the far, far away land of California).”  He’d make an exceptional color commentator when he grows up since he’s learned the fine art of filling the conversation with his vast personal experience.  He’s a regular expert at refocusing my “educational moments” to the injustices of being seven.

I attempt to lighten the conversation with parental humor. “The difference is no one will suck your dead, curled up body off the car mat with a shop vac once we arrive.”

My daughter shares a look of deep empathy with her brother.  “Let’s leave him. At least he’ll always be with his friends,” she says, gently returning him back to his arachnid social.  She’s been struggling for three years to strip the southern slang from her spelling (thay, manee, shur ) but she’s getting pretty good at smothering her parent’s conscience with a thick layer of guilt frosting.

Taking a risk in life is always difficult for an individual. It’s a steeper slope when you’re a couple trying to balance what is best for two people pursuing their own dreams.  But where do you begin with a family of four; two of which are arguably too young to vote?

My husband and I learned early in our marriage that if one of us was unhappy in some aspect of our personal life it was very difficult for the marriage to be happy.   How do you know if a major change that looks ideal for one person will be positive for the other?  If one person’s joy comes at the cost of another’s misery will we end up in a different city but on the same unsteady ground?

While we’re making this move for my husband’s career (therefore our family’s security and livelihood) our children may be thrown into a school that is not as successful, a community that is not as welcoming.  Maybe three of us will find a more fulfilling life while the fourth will be thrown into melancholy. What if the unhappy one turned out to be my husband?  How could we feel true glee as a unit? Unintentional pain can be a difficult outcome to live with.

Barbara Winter says, “Faith is knowing one of two things will happen: there will be something solid to stand on or you will be taught how to fly.” Taking personal risk is an act of faith. When the scope of life stretches beyond the horizon, into places I can not fathom, my best option is to turn it over to a higher power; trusting in where we are being drawn, that our family bond is strong enough to support one another through the difficult periods (which will come no matter where we reside), that our relationships will be stronger for having done this move together.  I would rather teach my kids that it is possible to survive a risky change which will allow them to swap out their fear of change for a solid dose of confidence.

My children are too wise and don’t mind me dancing around the truth, “Okay, we can take Mr. Longlegs on a minivan adventure.  He might like our deck as much as this bench, maybe even better, or he may hate it, but I think he’d like it better if you took a few of his friends along.  It’s always easier to do something new if you’re not alone…if you get to do it together.”

“Alright,” My son concedes, “but then I’m taking this cactus home too? It’s loaded with a pack of ants.  That way if we do lose the spiders we can sick the ants on them.”  Looks like I’ll be putting my shop vac to good use anyway.