ladysprite | Farewell

I don't usually post about celebrity passings here, for a bunch of reasons. Because everyone else does, so it's not like people are going to suddenly learn about it from me. Because they're not people I know, and because, while every death lessens us, it feels a little pretentious to mourn the death of someone I don't personally know, who wasn't a part of my life.

I'm going to buck that trend today, because Maurice Sendak was part of my life. Even though I never met him, even though I didn't know him, he shaped my world, in a good way, and part of who I am today is because of him.

'Where The Wild Things Are' - I think I've read that book at least several hundred times; it's still on the shelf right behind me, in a place of honor. It's one of my Top Ten Books Ever, still. (Though, admittedly, that list also includes 'Gone With The Wind,' 'World War Z,' and Charles DeLint's 'Memory And Dream,' so... not sure what that says about me, or the books in question.) I wanted to escape there so badly....

But it's not just that. That's the one book everyone knows, but there were so many other things, too. 'Outside Over There' is one of the spooky-awesome-est children's books ever. And his art was so rich, and his stories were just different enough to be fascinating, and I read them and read them and read them and now he's gone and the stories are still there, and I feel so foolish because I can't stop crying for someone I never met who wrote a bunch of stories I read thirty years ago.

(And last year, okay, and maybe a few dozen times in between.)

Goodbye, Mr. Sendak. Thank you.

...the wild things cried, "Oh, please don't go - we'll eat you up, we love you so!
...they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws
but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye...