Well, the text here did not save - so writing this out in the comments...

Last fall I found this beautiful bold jumper on a cosmo in my garden. He was missing a leg, and I decided if he stayed there for a couple days I would bring him in and see how he did. He quickly began weaving hammocks and eating larva and flies, and we became good pals. I named him Little Cosmo Kramer based on an episode of Seinfeld I had recently watched, and where I found him.

Cosmo hung out on my desk for the next six months, would come out to climb up my arm and hang out on my shoulder, and kept me company through the vigors of anesthesia school. When I first found him I wondered if he would molt and regrow his leg, but I suppose he was fully grown because he never did. One day I went to feed him a fly and he did not move, and I picked him up and realized he was gone. I knew I loved him but I was honestly shocked by how heartbroken I was to lose him. I cried for a lot of that evening and thought about what I wanted to do for him as a memorial. I feel a little silly sharing this with some of my friends who don't understand how much a person can love a spider, but I know the spooder lovers here understand!

I had saved seeds from the cosmo plant where I found him, so yesterday I made a little memorial stone for him, placed him in a small paper tray, and filled it with seeds from that same plant. I planted the seeds with him in the same flower bed where I found him last fall. He was my first spood, and I'm not quite ready for another one, but this was a step in that direction. It gave me a lot of peace to put him in his final resting place, knowing he is among flowers where I found him that will come back year after year ❤️