Have you ever shed tears over a comic book? I’m not ashamed to admit that I have.

For me it was Zeb Wells’ beautifully written issue 11 of Avenging Spider-Man with art by Steve Dillon and Frank Martin, a stunning meditation on overcoming grief that I discovered recently at just the moment when I needed it most.

I’ve been digging into the vast back catalog of Spider-Man comic books lately, and find myself gravitating towards the B-series titles like Avenging that generally feature lower-stakes, one-off stories. I’m the type of reader who values character moments and my own head canon over the byzantine ongoing continuity of the incredibly-long-running main title anyways. Death and grieving are major defining themes of the Spider-Man mythos, from his tragic origin to the many personal losses he’s endured throughout his years of superhero-ing, but the ideas are rarely examined with such depth and maturity. The fact that it’s snuck into this particular series whose main conceit is getting to watch Spider-Man team up with other Marvel heroes to punch the crap out of various villains-of-the-week makes the issue all the more remarkable.

The story in question starts out like any other: Spider-Man happens upon a robbery-in-progress featuring some ridiculously costumed, creature-themed bad guy and swings in to save the day. Except, as the would-be victims and even the villain himself note, New York’s quippiest hero is not acting like himself. He’s in a rush to wrap things up and doesn’t so much as crack a single joke. Something else is on Peter Parker’s mind today.

We soon learn that Spidey had a good reason to be in a rush: he’s en route to an annual visitation at his late Uncle Ben’s grave with the most important lady in his life, his dear old Aunt May.

There’s so much to love about this issue. The humor is sweetly understated, with Peter and May gently ribbing each other throughout in between brutally honest admissions of still-lingering guilt and grief. We get to see flashbacks of formative moments in Spider-Man’s life, from mourning in the immediate aftermath of his uncle’s murder to significant events in his life as a hero that exemplify the importance of his moral code.

It’s impossible for me not to think about my own mother when reading this issue. She passed away almost a year ago, after living with a terminal cancer diagnosis for the prior three and packing those final years with as much life and love as possible. I see her resilience, generosity of heart, and irrepressible sense of humor reflected in this issue’s depiction of Aunt May.

Even more than that, I deeply relate with young Peter’s feeling of missing a piece of himself with the loss of his Uncle Ben. At the emotional climax of the issue, May offers a heart-wrenching speech about what it feels like to move on from the loss of someone who meant the world to you, whom you relied on for more than you even knew until after they were gone:

Peter: Am… am I always going to feel this way?

May: You’re wounded, Peter. It’s a wound that stays with you. Changes you. You’ll see the pain of this world more readily. You know it’s there now. You won’t be able to ignore it.

You’ll see that life is temporary. Fragile. That every death is as important to someone as Ben’s was to you. That every life is worth protecting.

And you’ll feel weak where Ben’s strength used to prop you up. But you’ll honor him by standing on your own. Because you’ll see that Ben taught you how to be strong, and you’ll show the world that his strength still sustains you.

You’re going to help people, Peter. I know you are. Because Ben would.

Peter: You won’t listen to me. I’m nothing like Uncle Ben.

May: How do you know, Peter? Until now you haven’t had to be.

I’m a sucker for moments that give dear old May greater character depth than the overly protective and naively oblivious parental figure she’s often portrayed as. This issue has that in droves, giving May full credit for helping Peter internalize the whole “great power/great responsibility” value system (without invoking the famous phrase directly or minimizing Uncle Ben’s role in imparting that lesson in the first place). Another great May moment comes towards the end of the issue with her opaque admission that she is well aware of Peter’s second life as a hero. (This is kept vague so as not to upset the status quo of the main series’ continuity, but to this reader it’s clear as day what she’s saying.)

My Mom devoted much of her life to providing care to folks who are often overlooked in today’s society. She worked in elder care in various capacities throughout her life, and imbued her work with humor and compassion for individuals who might otherwise feel unseen. She taught me that every person’s life has value, to never lose sight of the humanity of others, and that kindness is always worth offering, even (perhaps especially) when there is nothing to be gained in return. And she made absolutely sure that I knew just how proud she was of me and how much love and kindness I had to offer the world.

I wouldn’t have expected a comic book to be the piece of art that would trigger the breakthrough I needed to help process my grief. As the story illustrates, mourning and commemorating a loved one is not a process with an end point. It’s something that can and should inform how you go about the rest of your life. Even though she’s no longer with us, Mom’s strength, compassion, and levity are still very much a part of me. Thanks to the wise words of Aunt May (by way of Wells), I’ll always remember to live in a way that would make her proud, making full use of all of the gifts she left me with.