Loving a “Wild Thing”

The oddest things make me cry these days.

Reading to cuddly two-year-old Luke before naptime:

The night Max wore the wolf suit and made mischief of one kind…

and another…

his mother called him, “Wild Thing!”

And Max said, “I’ll eat you up!”

and was sent to bed without eating anything.

–from Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

And I wished, oh how I wished, that it were only a wolf suit and some idle words, instead of mischief and misdemeanor that the wide world frowns on.  I wished he were only in his room instead of in a concrete block.  I wished I could fix him supper after sending him to bed without it, and serve it to him “still hot”.  Instead I know that he never gets enough to satisfy him, the tall young man with the high metabolism.

As long as he chooses to be the King of all Wild Things, and go on wild rumpuses any chance he gets…then he’s better off staying where he is.  But someday, please God, he’ll decide that he’s lonely.  He’ll really want to be “where someone loves him best of all”.  Then perhaps he’ll step into his private boat and sail back over a year and in and out of weeks…

and he’ll not only find his supper waiting for him, but he’ll see his parents sailing out to meet him as he approaches the harbor.  And they’ll be smiling.   And so will his Father.

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