A tale of love and reality.

"I want the TV on with a kid show playing when the girls get here, and I want to be sitting up in the chair," he said as he grimaced in pain. "I want it to be normal for them." Not wanting to seem as doubtful of that last statement as I felt, or unsupportive of his effort, I replied "oh you're still looking pretty normal, I'm sure they will be fine." I lied, I admit it, but what was I to do? He needed to hear that at that moment. He doesn't want his little girls to be scared of him or the situation, or of anything. Neither do I. But I knew, and so did Jim, that once they saw him like this, pale and thin, tubes in his nose and stapled there to hold them in place, bandages, IV's, etc., there was no way we could hide this reality from them, no matter how much we wanted to, no matter how much we tried and sadly, no matter what fun show was playing on TV.

As a parent, you don't want your children to have any bad moments. No sorrow, no fear, no pain. You worry daily how things will affect them. Your life it seems, centers around their well being, it's like trying to be their superhero. We imagine swooping in and using our "magic" parental powers to solve any little problem, and for a time it works. But as we all know, sadly, so very sadly, at some point in their sweet little innocent lives our parental superhero powers are just not strong enough to fight off the ugliness of reality sometimes. So what do we do? We "fake it till we make it" as my mom always says. We don't lie exactly, but we sort of stretch the truth to try and soften the blow. What I guess I am trying to say is that we just tell them from our hearts, the best that we can about life.

So while we nervously waited for our beautiful little girls to arrive, we tried not to dwell too much on all that was around us. It seemed so strangly quiet even with monitors beeping and the hustle and bustle in the hallway. It was in that moment while we waited in anticipation that I realized this is my new normal and I must accept that.

When Aja and Gianna finally arrived Jim was not sitting up in his chair, he was in bed trying his very best to keep his eyes open and pretend, of course, that he was not at all tired, but unfortunately his efforts were not working. The TV was on, but we forgot to put the volume up. So much for seeming "normal", sigh.... Thankfully, their grandma had talked to them on the way to the hospital about some of the things they might see once they arrived. She had already done the prep work so to speak. Their little faces looked a bit scared and their eyes were a bit wide, but as children often do they spoke the truth and said things like, "Daddy you don't look so good", and "those tubes must really hurt!" They asked a lot of inquisitve, honest questions. They were so nurturing and loving with their Daddy, it brought tears to my eyes to watch them take turns giving him a kiss on the cheek and gently caressing his face, telling him how much they love him. They had such sympathy, in their eyes. It was quite touching, as you can imagine. They didn't want to leave when it was time to go. I was so proud of them, they were so brave.

We all learned a little more about how to deal with reality today, but what I think we learned the most is how much we really love each other and that reality is not so bad when handled with love.