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Is my tummy broken?

Still, she asks.

We hear her cry out in a panic in the wee hours of the morning each day. Her small frame fumbles out of her bed and across the hall to the bathroom. 29 pounds has never sounded so heavy plodding across the floor. We find her clutching the base of the toilet bowl, her arms trembling, her pajama shirt exposing that tiny, disappearing waist.

A two-year old should not be able to predict this feeling, should not know how to control those muscles until she’s safely hunched over the toilet. And yet, because of the past three weeks, she does.

The deep gutterall moans of pain are like that of a tortured, old soul. A person with far more years of life and heartache under her belt. They come from a place deep within. Scared. Pained. At the mercy of whatever is attacking her little body.

I rub her back.

You’re so brave. I’m so proud of you. You’re so brave. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay…

They’re spoken to reassure me, more than they are her.

I press her slight figure against my own, willing whatever it is that is causing this pain – this rejection of all food and nourishment – to enter my body. I want to suck it out of her so that her eyes can once again sparkle. So that her skin won’t showcase every vain and rib. So that we no longer have to be awoken by such panic. And those moans… those awful, gut-wrenching moans.

Her spirit is as light as her body. And for this I am grateful. What she has lost in sustenance, she makes up for in spunk and resolve.

Mommy, can I maybe have some icecream when I have a solid poop again? I think that would be really good.

Yes, sweetie, yes. We can swim in a pool filled with raspberry ice cream when you are all better. When we’ve fixed that belly.

I yearn for her strength, as I fearfully crawl into James’ arms after each waking and my mind swells with terrible, frightening possibilities.

She curls up on her bed of towels, her face softening into the profile of the baby she once was. Of my baby that she will always be.

We breath together. I brush that long, silken hair from her cheeks and repeat, It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay… I will fix you. We will fix your belly. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay…

And we wait for those words to be true.

It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay…