Rock, Paper, Scissors.

I thought to do what we always did on rounds that morning:

"Rock, Paper, Scissors--SHOOT!"

That always seemed to make him feel better. But today, there was something heavy in the air. I decided to hold off.

"How are you today?"

He looked up at me with tired eyes. Round like big, brown marbles and almost doe-like. "Today is a tired day."

This response gripped my chest, especially since it was coming from someone so young. "I'm sorry," I replied.

"I'm tired," he answered. He laid back in the bed and flipped his cell phone over rhythmically like a flapjack in his hand.

"Tell me. What can I do for you today. To give you a little bit of sunshine today?"

He seemed to like that ambitious offer. Those bright eyes fixed onto my own and widened a bit. The near fluorescent hue of his jaundiced sclerae were like another kind of strange sunshine. Almost like that you'd see on other planets.

"Start me over without this disease. Let me have a do-over. That would make this day better."  I curled up one side of my mouth and furrowed my brow because I didn't have that in my little bag of internal medicine tricks. He seemed to feel bad for me after he said that. "I'm only kidding. It's just one of those days." Again the flapjack cell phone flying higher and higher in the air.

"How is the pain? Is it under control?"

"You know? It's probably like a '5' on a scale of 1 to 10, which for me isn't bad."

"Okay."

He kept tossing that phone and then changed the subject. "Dr. Manning? How did you know you wanted to be a doctor?"

Honestly? I wasn't sure of that answer. I thought about it for a moment and then answered, "I just knew I was good with people. So I guess I decided that something with people would be good for me."

"Damn, you sure aimed high." He let out a weak laugh, but only because his body was weak. It was meant to lighten the mood.

"I guess so, huh?"

"Yeah. You could have been a greeter at WalMart. That's totally a people gig," he mused.

"Hmmm. Never thought about that. You're right." I laughed with him while silencing his IV pump.

"Dr. Manning? Does anybody in your family have sickle cell like me?"

I stopped fussing with the IV and gave him my attention. "No."

"You're lucky. It's not a good disease to have, you know."

"Mmmm."  I started to say I know, but then I realized that I don't really know.

"Do you know what it feels like when it flares? It feels like someone breaking all of your bones at once. In a food processor."

"Wow."

"It's not fun."

"It doesn't sound fun."

This time he threw that phone so high into the air that I feared it would hit the ceiling. It didn't though. Finally he caught it and clasped it in his hands. "But you know? It's such a part of who I am now. As bad as it sounds, I wouldn't be me without it. And I like being me."

Just in that instant those words moved me deep in my soul. I almost felt like crying. "Liking yourself is great. So many people don't."

He shrugged his narrow shoulders and gazed at me with those golden rod-framed brown eyes. "I know my heart is good."

That moved me, too. Especially hearing that coming from someone who wasn't even twenty yet. "How do you know for sure? That your heart is good?"

Once I said that I wondered if it sounded like an insult. Fortunately, he didn't take it that way.

"I know because I can see the good in people. Even when they aren't nice or are acting ugly, I can see the good in them. I see the best in most situations, too. You need a good heart to do that."

"I reckon you do," I agreed. I thought for a moment about my own heart.

He must have read my mind. "What about you? Do you think you have a good heart?"

"I sure hope so," I responded quietly. "I try to."

"I can tell." He smiled at me with the wisdom of someone three times his age.

"You are wise, you know that? You are wise like a village elder."

He pressed his lips together and shrugged again. "I'm just me."

"And you know what? You is good. I like you."

His mouth turned downward feigning a smug expression as he nodded his head up and down. Flipping the phone once again, he raised one eyebrow at me and replied, "And I like me, too."

I smiled for a moment and savored his words. Then with a playful and decidedly more energetic laugh he got down to our daily ritual.

"Rock, Paper, Scissors?" His raised eyebrow went up again. This time even more exaggerated than before.

"Let's do it."

I put those words in my pocket for later realizing that no matter who would win at Rock, Paper, Scissors that I was already the victor just for being there.

***