“Mister,” he said.
The classroom was full of students milling around in the moments remaining before the bell.
“Mister,” he said again. I looked over at him. “She took it to school!”
He was talking about his sister. She is very sick and until recently had been getting chemo. The other day, he told me that the treatment was over — that they weren’t giving her chemo, anymore. And when he told me that, I told him I wanted to draw his sister a picture, at which point we walked over to my desk, and he watched me draw a full page “stick figure” extending an arm that grew large in cartoonish fashion similar to the Keep On Truckin’ bumper stickers from decades ago. It was a simple picture with a ballooning hand reaching out to do a high-five with the words “Good job” underneath and a big cartoonish exclamation point.
At the time, he said, “She’ll want to draw you a picture herself, Mister” which made me smile.
But it turned out even better than that: she took the picture to school to show to her friends. Because she needs to be proud of having made it through what she made it through.