…
“The world is a play, a children’s game,
and you are the children.”
God speaks the truth.
If you haven’t left the child’s play,
how can you be an adult…
The same with the fightings of mankind.
It’s a squabble with play-swords.
No purpose, totally futile.
Don’t wait until you die to see this.
Recognize that your imagination and your thinking
and your sense perception are reed canes
that children cut and pretend are horsies…
— Rumi
“19 to 10–you are destroying me!” I said, just one point away from defeat. Across the fussball table, my 11 year-old rival–bald and smiling–was confident victory would soon be hers.
I was foolish to challenge Rasha to a fussball match this week at St. Jude’s, where I was volunteering. I’d forgotten that she plays like a pro–and I’m just JV.
“Well, I do get a lot of practice,” she said–before flicking her wrist, and scoring her winning goal.
A frequent visitor to the cancer center–and hence the playroom–Rasha has missed many days of school this year–while becoming a master in play. But this week, on yet another trial of chemo, she told me that she’s tiring of all the games, tricks, and puzzles she’s already mastered. After she whipped me in fussball, I could tell I wasn’t worthy of another game. UNO and Monopoly no longer hold any appeal to her, and she hasn’t been in the mood to draw.
“How about…Hangman?” I said, noticing a white board with markers near the door.
“Um, well, okay,” she said, shrugging her shoulders and wheeling her chemo pouch across the room.
It’s been decades since I last gave Hangman a shot–I’ve never even played it online. I couldn’t remember if the sad little stick man gets fingers or ears, so Rasha picked a word first–and gave me little time to guess.
“Hurry up, pick a letter,” she kept saying–like an impatient coach.
At least I remembered to pick the vowels first–and thankfully, she picked a word that was full of them.
“What in the world is a cartoonito?” I asked her, filling in the last letters. Though I was tempted to cry Hangman foul–the word was so unexpected–I wanted to know how she learned it.
“I just saw it behind you on the TV–it always appears on this channel,” she said, surprised I didn’t know more about the Cartoon Network. Since I’d never heard Cartoonito–a pre-school brand owned and distributed by the Turner Broadcasting System–I never expected it would be the word a Lebanese pre-teen with leukemia would choose in our first round of Hangman.
Rasha and I played Hangman until it was time for me to leave–when my shift was up. Unlike other games, she hasn’t grown tired of Hangman just yet. Leaving her at the hospital–with some DVDs to entertain her in her room–it was clear she was sad to see me go (when she followed me to the elevator), and I was sad she had to stay. It wouldn’t be right to say “Hope to see you next week,” since the fewer days she spends sick in the hospital–the better. Though I never say it, each time I leave I think: while I love playing with you, I’m hoping I don’t see you next week–because that would mean you’re one step closer to getting better. One step closer to being cancer-free. One step closer to going back to school, and leaving all these tired–but life-saving games–behind…
