The Wild Rumpus

I hereby admit that I was inspired today by the letter W and by Chuck's post on his blog about Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are". I have to tell you the story behind the story. Maybe feelings get bottled up inside of us for so long and once we share our stories, we can move on. Like Chuck, I too was moved by the same story that was read at the same funeral for the same friend. This friend was young, only 20, when he chose to leave us. He was also my very dear little cousin. Time has passed and we've all moved on with our lives. We've become too busy for all sorts of things. But, I have never been too busy to read this story with my daughter and cry each time I read it. Maurice Sendak's words were read over and over to me as a child. His illustrations are imprinted in my memory to the point that I feel as though I lived in Max's room and saw the forest grow and grow. When my cousin passed away we all were stripped of life. He didn't realize how much of an impact, or maybe he did, he had on all of us. His stronghold was fierce and tugged at you until you couldn't stand it any longer. Don't get me wrong I understood my cousin more than anyone ever really understood. I too, had and have that same fierceness. The aggression to want more and to be more. It's not a call for attention, it is a need to be understood. He simply wanted someone to understand him. If he only knew, we did understand him! A lot of times I felt the same ways that he felt. And with that, let the wild rumpus begin....

When the rumpus was over my cousin, like most of us, wanted to be where someone loved him best of all. He had that and he knew he had that. But he sailed his boat off into a different direction.

It was my mother who chose that story for my cousin's funeral. She read it with us, my cousins and I, countless times and it was Sendak's words that wrought her of sleep on the eve of writing my cousin's eulogy. While my cousin gave up being king of where the wild things are, he gave us all up. Disappointment is a hard thing to recover from and I don't know that any of us ever will fully recover. His supper still waits for him and it is still hot. (Thank you to Maurice Sendak and to my little cousin's older brother who bought me my very own copy of this book, because he understands)

signed, the willow