Fix It?

Last night we had the sort of an adventure we would rather do without:

Our little boy got sick to his stomach.

Around 11pm, just a few minutes after we went in to check on them for the night before we went to bed, Michael woke up screaming. I mean SCREAMING!

We rushed in there and saw that he had gotten sick all over his bed. *picture not included*

We took him out of there so Matthew could continue sleeping, while Michael continued rapid-fire screaming for several minutes.

Even though he had gotten sick, clearly, his stomach was bothering him. He had more in his system and he didn't know what to do with himself.

So Mommy, and Daddy and Michael sat in the hall just outside his room with a towel laid out for him to do his thing. We did everything we could to comfort him and clean him off, but in the end, this just needed to pass on its own.

Well, the absolutely most devastating part of it was, after about 5 minutes of coughing, sputtering, screaming, crying, and everything else that goes along with these sorts of episodes, little Michael finally works up the coherence of mind to talk to us.

He looks up at us, and with tears in his eyes, body quaking, and voice trembling he gasps desperately, "Fix it?"

Well, my heart just broke into about a million pieces right then and there.

The love and trust in those two words was both wonderful and devastating, since I knew there wasn't much we could do to fix his present condition without him going through a few more unpleasantries.

But, after distracting him with a little movie while we waited with him on more towels to finish...and getting his bed cleaned (while Matthew snoozed the night away), clean clothes, and after getting him a bath and a good tooth-brushing, our little boy was resting comfortably in his bed about an hour after the whole ordeal started.

Michael Sr leaned over his bed, touched his forehead and said to him, "See? We fixed it." With that, Michael Jr whispered his request for a story, which we of course obliged, and he drifted off to sleep.

The heartbreak of Michael's request...the thing that took all his effort to say, that he'd probably been thinking about since he first got sick, "I need to ask Mommy and Daddy to fix it!" was replaced by the end of it all, by a sense of satisfaction and gratitude to God that we brought comfort to our little boy, and when he went to sleep, he knew his faith and trust was not misplaced in his parents to take care of him.

As he grows up, there may be things that Mommy and Daddy may not be able to fix...sadness, suffering, heartbreak, loss, and the like, but hopefully, he'll know that we'll always do our best to fix it, be with him through his suffering, helping him clean up whatever messes he made, either physical, financial, emotional, or spiritual so he can always know that this is what we are here for, and we'll always do everything we can to see him through until he is comfortable and happy again.