Maurice Sendak

Who will Sit Shiva for you? Your parents, brother, sister, and partner are gone. Perhaps, we all will Sit Shiva -- in our hearts and minds.
We feel close to you. But yesterday we all have lost you... you, who made a significant, positive difference in our lives ... a genius who created memorable pictures and characters and stories and poems and opera sets and ideas and memories and beauty.
You gave a child permission to acknowledge his/her anger and fear. You created a path for a child to connect with someone in a book - Max, Pierre, Mickey, Rosie? You bared the reality of children who are homeless, of children who were about to die in the Holocaust.
Yet, in a magnificently strong and hopeful statement, when Max did return --you said that his supper was waiting for him, "and it was still hot."
Our hearts hurt... from the loss of you.
We will Sit Shiva for you. We will have cheesecake, remembering how much you liked it.
I recall the role your children's faces, showing anger, played in a rather resistant reader painfully learning to read. When I wrote to thank you, you graciously responded with pleasure. You certainly made a difference in that boy's life!
Yesterday, I added a second small "stuffed" Max to the one I always have in my pocketbook and said to him that I thought he needed company because his daddy had just died.
With great sadness... but with sincere gratitude for all you have given us, Maurice Sendak.