Written by Terry Ward – I first saw him sitting on the floor of his hospital room in the pediatric unit of St. Andrews where I volunteered. He was playing with toy cars borrowed from the playroom down the hall.

On first inspection, it appeared as if an engineer or architect had laid out the plans for the parking area for his cars. Wooden Jenga blocks were methodically arranged as partitions for each vehicle, and each one was positioned carefully into place. He might have been a designer in an earlier life, now reincarnated as a nine-year old with an uncanny attention to detail.

His blondish hair was straight and well-combed. It framed a handsome boy’s face. His rich brown eyes took in everything going on around him. He sat cross-legged on the floor, one sock on and one sock off.

“Hi, Brandon,” I said. “Mind if I come in?” He nodded his OK, then put on the other sock a little self-consciously.

He began describing his handiwork as I sat down on the floor in front of his construction. “These aren’t all the same size,” he said, referring to the toy cars. “Some don’t look right, but it’s all I’ve got.” The apology seemed to be on an adult level, letting me know that he had high standards of toy car garage building, and what he had to work with was not what he would have chosen himself. There was no ego involved, only concern for uniformity and purity of design.

“Want to help me make a tower?” he asked. “Sure,” I said and helped him gather up the wooden Jenga blocks in preparation for the construction. He decided that the tower building site should be on the moveable tray table that fit over the hospital bed for eating and writing. He climbed into bed and settled in while I put the blocks in a pile on the tray table.

With a steady hand and calculated determination, he made a tower of the blocks, crisscrossing them to make the stack of blocks stronger. In minutes, the tower of wooden blocks was a foot high. The last block was put carefully into place on the top.

“Now take one out,” he said. The object of Jenga blocks is to have each player remove one of the blocks, trying not to make the tower fall. The player who removes a block and makes the tower fall is the loser.

To begin the game, I slowly removed a block from the middle of the tower, a seemingly good choice. The tower remained steady. It was now his turn. He removed a block about a third down from the top. No problem; no falling blocks.

We each took our turn until only a skeleton of the tower remained. My choice of the next block was not a good one, and the tower came down with a fine crashing sound. A very good sound with blocks scattering everywhere. We gathered them up and it was clear to me that it was time for another activity.

“How about Clue?” he asked. Although I hadn’t played since our neighborhood board games when I was growing up, I readily agreed. It was always one of my favorites, a close second to Monopoly.

“Are you pretty good at this?” I asked as I opened the box and set up the board. We each chose our playing pieces.

“Yeah, I think so. Last time I played we had the kids’ game and I won all the time.”

“And you know that this is the adult version,” I pointed out. “The rules are a little different. I’ll show you.”

“OK. But don’t cheat. My dad always cheats,” he observed.

The game began. We played several rounds, and I noticed that when he kept score on the score pad, his points crept up faster than he was actually earning them. I said nothing. He was enjoying a match where the adult wasn’t cheating and he was able to do a little creative scorekeeping on the pad.

A nurse brought in his medication and some fruit juice. It was time for me to leave. I wanted to stay longer, but sensed that he was getting tired and needed some rest. The cystic fibrosis was taking its toll on his small body.

“Can you come back tomorrow?” he asked as I got up to leave. “We can play again tomorrow.”

It was not my usual day for volunteering, but I nodded and said, “Sure. See you tomorrow. And, by the way, this weekend I’ll go to West Virginia to see my family there. Have you ever been to West Virginia?”

“Nope. Never been out of North Carolina except to go to the beach.”

“Would you like for me to bring you a postcard from West Virginia? They have black bears there. I’ll see if I can find a card with black bears on it.”

“OK. See you tomorrow. We can play Clue again. I liked it. It was fun. I’ll keep score.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said. “Get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“‘Bye.”

“‘Bye, Brandon. Take care of yourself.”

“OK. ‘Bye”

I left his hospital room before the lump in my throat grew any larger.
***

The following week I returned to visit Brandon. I had found three postcards on my trip to West Virginia. Two had black bears on them and a third showed a doe and her fawn. When I handed him the postcards, he looked at them several times then put them carefully under his pillow. We played several games of Clue, the adult version, before I left. He kept score.
***

It was a week later when I returned to his room at the hospital. The room was vacant and clean sheets were on the bed. His personal belongings were in a plastic bag by the bedside.

A nurse saw me standing in the doorway and came over from the nurse’s station.

“I’m afraid I have bad news,” she said. “Can we talk over here please?” She indicated the empty playroom.

“Brandon died early this morning. His parents called around 8 AM.”

I was stunned. Speechless. She saw my face and knew I was searching for words but had none.

After a pause, she said, “We are not supposed to share patient’s personal information, but I know that he liked you very much and trusted you, so I’ll pass this along.”

She paused again, then said, “Brandon turned off his monitor and life support machine. He never woke up.”

I stared vacantly down the hall.

Written by Terry Ward

“I’m sorry,” she continued. “Very sorry. Will you be OK?”

I nodded and somehow managed to say, “I think so.”

“Maybe you could come back to see the other children on another day,” she offered, knowing that I was still trying to sort things out. Her voice was warm and compassionate.

“I will. Thank you,” I said and walked slowly down the hallway to the elevator. I had a coffee in the hospital coffee shop before I drove home.

It was a much longer drive than usual.

_____________________________________________________________

Terry Ward moved to Asheville in 1996 and is an educator at AB Tech as well as a writer of poetry, short stories, and historical fiction. Also an itinerant musician and incurable punster.