Here Terry Gross of NPR’s “Fresh Air” briefly interviews the celebrated children’s author and illustrator. The video was illustrated by Christopher Niemann and was featured in the New York Times. I’m putting it up because Sendak discusses his atheism and how it affects his attitudes towards life, getting old, and dealing with the deaths of his friends. It’s very bittersweet and moving, and relevant to the last post about Susan Jacoby’s op-ed.
Sendak died last March at age 83.
“There are so many beautiful things in the world that I have to leave. . . ”
“I cry a lot because I miss people; I cry a lot because they die and I can’t stop them. They leave me. . . and I love them more.”
Do listen.
h/t: Greg Mayer via Andrew Sullivan
That was very touching. It interests me how many older atheists that I speak with use many religiously toned platitudes. I guess it was more common in their generation. I myself will use “Bless you” when someone sneezes, which makes people stare at me. Then I make an enormous “sign of the cross” and they laugh.
I haven’t watched the video, but I remember the interview. Would that everyone who shared their feelings were as honest as Sendak.
Sendak was one of my favorite authors as a teenager, and I loved touring the Sendak museum as in Philadelphia where I spent my teen years, so this was particularly lovely and heartening to hear. The Schubert is an extraordinarily lovely touch on the part of the New York Times.
“I’m in love with the world.” This should put to rest stereotypes of smug or heartless atheists, but it won’t.
Sendak’s interview with Colbert is an all-time classic. [Part 1] [Part 2]
He was hilarious in it
Very touching video. Contrary to so-called popular opinion, Atheists are human
If Sendak had given a TED talk, and illustrated it himself, it would have looked something like that – only more so.
That was an emotional sucker-punch. Really touching. I hope I face my losses in such an honest way.
I watched for any indication that my father was getting more religious in his last months, but that didn’t happen.
He had this poem set aside, that had run in a magazine. Clark Clifford read it at Averell Harriman’s funeral, but I think it was popular before that, and it seems nicely non-religious. If of interest to anyone:
“To Those I Love”
by
Isla Paschal Richardson
If I should ever leave you whom I love
To go along the Silent Way… grieve not.
Nor speak of me with tears, but laugh and talk
Of me as if I were beside you there.
(I’d come…I’d come, could I but find a way!
But would not tears and grief be barriers?)
And when you hear a song or see a bird
I loved, please do not let the thought of me
be sad… For I am loving you just as
I always have…
You were so good to me!
There are so many things I wanted still
To do…so many things to say to you…
Remember that I did not fear…It was
Just leaving you that was so hard to face.
We cannot see Beyond…But this I know:
I loved you so…‘twas heaven here with you!
Thank you for posting this.
Glad you liked it. And, it’s easily tailored to a specific person by changing song and/or bird as appropriate.
Thank you for that. Please allow me to offer up one too, by William Butler Yeats — “When you are Old”.
“When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced among the mountains overhead
And hid his face among a crowd of stars.”
When he said “almost certainly I will go before you do, so I won’t have to miss you” it almost made me cry. To reclaim my masculinity I may have to watch a football game, or perhaps punch a homosexual (a small one of course.)
As a (medium-sized) homosexual, I wonder if you think you could mow the lawn (angrily) instead?
“I cry a lot because I miss people; I cry a lot because they die and I can’t stop them. They leave me, and I can’t stop them.”
Correction to the last line above, Dr. C. In the interview, Sendak said, “They leave me, and I love them more.”
Thanks for this post. His words are so wise, so poignant and so beautiful. We’re lucky to be able to hear his simple truth.
I’ll fix that, thanks!
I’m not crying, it’s face rain.
This is one of the reasons I love your site, Jerry, such a wonderful melange of posts! Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I do take issue with Mr. Sendak, however, on the idea that belief in god and the monstrous ideas of heaven and hell would make death in the midst of life more comforting to anyone.
Why would the death of friends old and not so old test my lack of faith? I can’t understand why anyone with an ounce of sense or a functioning brain cell could possibly entertain the concept of a god and no matter what I encounter in this world makes me doubt that there is not one.
“I’m in love with the world”…The day certainly wasn’t wasted with THAT line waiting for me when I got home.
Reblogged this on Mark Solock Blog.
Wow, this is absolutely beautiful. I think I’ll be playing this very often.
Even religious people fight death as a rule. People would rather bare the ills they have than fly to others they know not of; to paraphrse William Shakespere. When there is faith, there is also a modicum of doubt.
sub
When Hitchens died this one particular poem came to mind to me which seemed to sum up both my sense of loss and my atheistic view of it…
Dirge Without Music
BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.
Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.