Maybe It's Not Real........

11/3/12--Saturday--Day 21--Pretending
We woke up hoping this was all a dream and would go away.  We headed to Phoenix for Preston's ballroom dance competition at ASU knowing we needed to tell the kids.  It was finally time.  There was no denying the evidence.  And we didn't want them to not trust us in the future.  While we didn't have all of the details of how or when, we knew there was going to be surgery and soon.  We knew there was probably going to be radiation and/or chemo.  Most importantly, we knew we had cancer.

We drove most of the way in silence--probably more in disbelief.  "It's not fair.  You shouldn't have to go through this," Greg would blurt out breaking the silence.  While it was easy to think we were so unlucky, how could we say that.  We had two wonderful kids who got through high school without drinking, smoking, doing drugs or getting pregnant.  They earned great grades and were both in college doing well.  We had a nice house, nice vehicles and amazing friends.  We were financially able to travel and do fun things on the weekends.  We both had great jobs that we loved doing.  We weren't unlucky.  This just happened.

We decided it wasn't good to tell Preston before his competition, so Sunday would be the day.  When we saw him at the dance competition, we pretended everything was normal.  We had a good time watching him and his girlfriend and dance partner, Yuri, but I could see Greg was dying inside.  He doesn't have a good poker face.  I was praying Preston didn't ask what was wrong with dad.

We left at five and headed to see our good friends, Paul and Diane.  Paul's band was opening for a nationally known group and we were excited for him.  Besides, it was nice pretending our life was still normal.  When we arrived, Paul was already on stage so we hung out with Diane.  After being there ten minutes, Diane asked, "What's up with Greg?"  I shrugged it off.  She has always been incredible at reading people.  I was doing great keeping up a good front, but poor Greg just was beside himself.  Diane asked again.  I laughed and joked that she should stop reading us.  We had to keep up the facade until we had some time alone with them.  We had to keep pretending.