Real or Not Real

(*Spoiler Alert:  I'm about to reference critical scenes from Mockingjay, the final book in The Hunger Games trilogy.  If you don't want to know what happens...skip this post)

I read The Hunger Games trilogy in a matter of days, captivated not only by the exquisite writing, but also by a story that drown me in a particularly evocative sorrow.  I wept as Katniss lost so much, and found courage in her willingness to push forward despite the pain.  I found myself relating to the characters and the story, set in a world where happiness is fleeting, where every decision carries potentially desperate consequences, and where nothing is as it once was.

In the final book, Peeta -- Katniss' fellow victor and friend -- returns to her, but he's broken nearly beyond repair.  Tortured and psychologically tormented by the Capital, he no longer remembers that he loves her...in fact, his every memory of her has been altered so he reacts to her only with fear and hostility.  To help him remember, Katniss and the others create a game of "Real or Not Real".  Peeta asks a question about his memories, and they answer "Real" or "Not Real", to help him begin to unravel what the Capital has planted as lies, and what his true memories and feelings really are.  It's a sad and painful passage in the book, this agony of watching Peeta struggle to know which parts of his world are real and which are only nightmares created by someone else.

So what does Peeta's game have to do with me?  Simple.  I want someone to tell me this is "Not Real".   I want to say, "I remember they told me she needed a new liver"...and I want someone to say "No, that is not how it happened.  That is Not Real".

I've read everything the Google search engine can turn up about J's liver disease.  I've spent countless hours reading other parents' blogs about their child's liver transplant -- some wonderful, some horrifyingly sad.  I've had meetings and appointments and phone calls and email conversations with doctors and nurses and transplant coordinators in two different states, trying to make sense of what I'm being told.  And I hear them, and the part of my brain that is able to intellectualize everything understands them.  I can spit back detailed information about studies and transplant protocols, and I can tell you in minute detail how, exactly, a liver transplant happens.  What I can't do is look at J. and say, "This -- this thing they tell me you have, this transplant they say you need -- this is Real."

And until I can do that, until it feels Real...I am still angry and afraid.