I am inexplicably scared of alligators; David was scared of spiders. Metaphorically, it’s a bit interesting since I have not met anybody in my life who could weave a more complicated web of complexity into the simplest of things. When 800+ people show up for a wake, you can start to get an idea of the impact a single person could have on so many people.
If you think about a spider—not in the horror movie, scary way—look at it from how beautiful it is in its design and evolution… I think you will find some similarities in how David was able to maintain so many relationships while also keeping them genuine in their own unique way.
Breakdown the spider web for a second: It’s an amazingly-complex structure that maximizes surface area. It’s structurally resistant to the elements exceeding the tensile strength of steel, easily repairable, and almost infinitely expandable.
At the center or the hub, the spider is able to sense the tiniest vibrations from any point on the web and know exactly where and what is going on.
In this way, I think David was much like that. Not in a sinister way, but in his innate ability to continue to weave friendships, allowing them to connect fluidly from another part of his life to the next. All the while, he was able to sit at the center, and if something was caught up in any of the rungs, he could react. The inter-connectivity of his relationships with us would be connected through other people in his life, and in this way, he actually could be present without actually being there.
In this way, I think he was able to juggle so many connections with so many people simultaneously.
So I guess the real question is: If David was the Spider, that makes me an Alligator. What the hell does that mean?
