Family Friend

One night, in Larry and Nina's room, a mural grew. A joyful procession - a dog, two boys, two birds, a lion, a girl, a bear, and a sun - was being painted by a dear family friend, who spread paper and paint jars on the floor and sometimes stood on their beds to work. It was 1961, and the family friend - Uncle Moo Moo - was Maurice Sendak, 33. Fifty years later, the mural - in two hefty slabs - has made its way from the 13th-floor apartment overlooking Manhattan's Central Park to a new home: the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Center City, which houses Sendak's papers, books, art, and ephemera.

The broadcast images of massive crowds clashing with soldiers and police across Egypt this week come from the other side of the world, too far away to worry most people here. But for Hoda Mitwally, Rafik Saddik, Basem Hassan, and other Egyptian Americans, the scenes of rioting, looting, and arrests hit home. "As a human being, and someone who strongly believes in human rights and justice for all, I feel that this is something that all people should get behind," said Mitwally, a 21-year-old Rutgers University student.

For now, Bruce Hanner worries about numbers during basketball games. Down the road, his focus might be letters, as in X's and O's. He thinks he wants to coach, and do a whole lot more. "Whatever job I wind up getting, I want to be around children," Hanner said. "Maybe teaching physical education at the high school level, and coaching. "Around where I live, the only people I could really look up to growing up were my mom and dad [Iva/Bruce]. There weren't too many great people on the outside.

"I want to tell you about Timmy. He was a good kid. " With those words, Bette Clark let flow three years of bottled emotion, a 20-minute eulogy of what-ifs and whys that left a Common Pleas Court jury - and a veteran homicide prosecutor - in tears. Clark, 51, was the first prosecution witness Tuesday in the start of the death-penalty hearing for Gerald Drummond and Robert McDowell, the Tacony men found guilty of first-degree murder in the 2007 racially tinged shootings of Clark's 15-year-old son and 27-year-old family friend Damien Holloway.

The City of Philadelphia has announced one of its new year's resolutions - a more family-friendly Mummers extravaganza. Think more bathrooms and a new performance spot along Broad Street. In unveiling details of the 111th Mummers Parade - to take place, fittingly, on 1/1/11 - city officials Wednesday also pledged to move the annual Mummers String Band Show of Shows to Philadelphia from Atlantic City, where it has been held for years. That way, older Philadelphians who cannot withstand the typical January weather will get a chance to watch the Mummers live.

They came in thanksgiving and in sadness Saturday to remember Alice and George and so many others, all gone now. Friends and family gathered at St. Vincent de Paul Church in East Germantown to commemorate the dead or disappeared in a ceremony sponsored by Face to Face, a nonprofit social-services group that works out of a large building next to the rectory. Beverly needed help reading her remarks, and Flip struggled to maneuver his scooter to the front of the church to speak. But they spoke eloquently of people such as Alice Renzulli, who died this summer at age 62, having choked during lunch at a mental-health center down the street.

DEATH BY SUICIDE can take only moments, but its aftershocks last forever. That's what Susan Kelleher learned six years ago when her 22-year-old son, Jake, ended his life. "It never goes away," said Kelleher, of Phoenixville. "You never stop thinking about it. Suicide grief is just so unbelievable. " Every year, more Americans lose family and friends to suicide than to homicide. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, more than 34,000 Americans committed suicide in 2007, a number that has remained steady for years.

Christmas was a big holiday for Brenda Ellen Lee. "It's the season of love, family togetherness and giving - three things Brenda was known to represent," her family said. "One could never open a present until everyone was there, so she could take pictures and make sure all enjoyed the moment. " Brenda Lee, who loved children and rarely missed a graduation, birthday or other chance to praise a child's accomplishments, died Oct. 16 of complications of an allergic reaction to medication.

I'M SAD to report that the crime wave sweeping our region has finally hit our home. No one was hurt, thank God. Not physically, at least. But when it happened, we felt violated. We felt helpless. We felt dirty. We never thought it would happen to us. We live quiet lives. We mind our own business. We don't bother anyone. But these criminals, they don't care about that. In fact, they don't care about anything. They just go through life taking. And when they took from us, they took more than just property.

As a mathematician with high-security clearance from the Navy, Alvin F. Wilke would figure the trajectory of certain shipboard weapons to their intended targets. But the secrecy of his work in the 1960s caused him too much stress, his wife, Constance, said. So in 1968, he left his job at the Naval Weapons Laboratory in Dalgren, Va., and moved back to South Jersey to be a mechanic. "He was a very shy, quiet kind of guy," his wife said, adding that he also "liked getting dirty. " For more than 40 years, Mr. Wilke used his math skills to fix vehicle engines in various South Jersey service facilities.