Just Pretending

I spend hours--days, even--explaining to 2008 what is real and what is pretend. 

I thought she might blow a gasket when National Geographic confirmed that lava is real. Photosynthesis really blew her mind. Dialysis seemed cool.

Today, though, for the first time, she thought I was lying. Her grandfather received a liver transplant in the 90s, and again within the last six years. I explained how it worked, and she thought I had made up the whole thing.

Now, I’ll admit that it seems a little sci-fi, in the way that growing a fetus in your body is a little sci-fi. Short of taking her to surgery, I couldn’t prove to her that it was real. Many other things from youtube were just pretend, so that was hardly an option. She cannot yet read. None of our doctor friends were available, so what was I to do?

This is why I think it’s important to never lie to my children. In the end, I looked her in the eyes and promised this was the truth. Someone else’s organs now live inside her Grampa. I promised I wasn’t pretending.

Her answer: that’s ridiculous.