A deception is told to take something from you, to get you to act against your own interest by believing a false thing.

My father told me a false thing, yes, that he was a stranger who wanted a pretend daughter, when in fact he was my true father who wanted his real one.

But he told it not to take anything from me but to give me everything, and not against my interest but entirely for it.

There should be a different word for a lie told purely for the good of the person it is told to, a lie that protects, that heals, that hands you back your own life without the shock that the plain truth would have carried.

Whatever that word is, that is what my father told me in that hospice room.