(written in late October, 2025)

Every once in a while, a story, a song, or a scene in a TV show or a movie inspires me to take a look at how HERO (hope, efficacy, resiliency, and optimism) helps us through grief. 

This morning, it was the nursery rhyme legend of a tiny spider who was going about her daily work, when a force outside herself changed everything. (I identify a little bit with the spider, so that’s why I’m using female pronouns.)

Although it’s unclear whether the spider experienced grief, this familiar nursery rhyme can teach us about how HERO helps us through our experiences of grief.

Maybe, just like our HERO spider, you’ve been going about life, and then something changes it all. 

Perhaps, like me, you’ve had some of the following experiences.

• You’ve found out a coworker is ill and can’t help with an important upcoming project. 
• You’ve been fired, not for lack of work, but due to budget cuts. 
• Your body is not working with you.
• You’ve been frustrated at not knowing how to help a family member who is going through a really hard time.
• You’ve experienced the death of someone who played a significant role in your life.

All of these are grief experiences, and like our little spider, can wash us away to an unexpected mental or physical place. 

So what did our tiny spider do after she found herself in a different place than planned?  According to the song, when the sun came up again, she went back to work.

How did she do that? I think this can be an example of seeing her inner HERO at play. 

She had hope because she had the will to climb the pipe again. She’d done it before, so she knew the way. Hope is both way power and willpower thinking. When we are grieving, we can look for things we’re familiar with, things we know the “way” to get them done, and then do them. By taking these small actions, we can strengthen our hope as our spider did.

Her simple act of climbing the waterspout again showed efficacy, a belief in herself, and resiliency, getting up after being washed out of the spout and doing it again. Sometimes in grief, it’s just about getting up and getting going. Just taking the next small step can strengthen our efficacy and resiliency. 

Optimism is a little harder to extrapolate from the song, but since I know that all the parts of HERO work together, we might simply say optimism was there; it just wasn’t obvious. Perhaps, like in a string quartet, optimism had a rest while hope, efficacy, and resiliency played the notes, but all four were doing their part to keep the music going.

I encourage you to look for ways, like our tiny spider, to activate your inner HERO during times of grief. Remember, itsy bitsy actions can make big differences.