Am I dying? was a question my mom never considered would be posed by the young advertising executive who chatted her up in a bar on a cold Sunday afternoon. Despite the fact she was on a date, the gentleman introduced himself, asking whether she was a Giants or an Eagles fan. She was neither. She was a Green Bay Packers fan studying in New York, and he was just out of college and working at a firm in New York City. She was on a date, but it did not seem to matter much after Mike made his interest known. She knew her life was about to change.

Am I dying? was not the question on my mom’s mind less than a year later when that young advertising executive asked if she wished to start a new life together with him. Although his death might have been on her mind a day later when he told her in the car on the way to his parents’ apartment in Scarsdale that he had gotten so loaded the night before he could not remember anything about the evening. She had returned to school after the proposal, told all her friends she was engaged and indulged in all of the dreams about her wedding. It was a joke, of course. And one which she would only appreciate in hindsight.

Am I dying? was the question my dad asked my mom just months after he called her from a payphone in Kentucky to tell her he was lost and could not remember how to get home. It was several months after they learned that the cause of the severe headaches he had experienced on vacation earlier that summer was a brain tumor. The cancer cells which had remained dormant in his lungs for years had metastasized, and formed a tumor in his brain that progressively grew larger. The tumor gained strength as it consumed more of the brain matter and more of the man she met in a bar before a football game years before.

Like warm butter on a freshly-toasted English muffin, the cancer infiltrated every nook and cranny of his brain in a swift and callous manner. The cancer wasted no time in crippling the man of her dreams. And time, which had once been an ally, had turned against them.

Am I dying? Yes, she told him. You are dying. It was evident less than a year after his diagnosis that the only foe which claim victory over the cancer was death. She was unsure what his mind could accept or even understand, but she loved him too much to give false hope. She had too much respect for the man he once not to be honest.

And that was a good thing because what my mom did not know at that moment was my brother was standing in the hallway within earshot. The next day the question would be asked anew. This time it was her 12-year-old son who inquired, “Is Dad dying?” She said yes. In a moment she had to make a very difficult decision — is now the time for honesty or a time to shelter him from the undeniable reality. Her gut would not lie and neither would she. It was a decision many parents face when dealing with a terminal illness. How much honesty can a child handle? When is it appropriate to treat the child as an adult and when is it better to swaddle them in well-intentioned fiction.

There is no easy answer. There is no playbook. But there is love and every answer should come from there.