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The realization hit me slowly, but it hit with the force of a wrecking ball. It was not a dangerous flu, it was not a high fever, and it was not a contagious medical emergency. It was simply standard motion sickness.
An eight year old girl vomited because she was stuck in the back of a van full of loud children, on a winding mountain road, in the sweltering heat, and surrounded by constant shouting. Her grandparents decided to discard her like a piece of luggage that was simply in the way of their vacation. I helped her into the passenger seat, cleaned her face gently with soft wipes, and gave her some cold water.
I buckled her belt carefully as if she were made of glass that might shatter at any moment. “Listen to me very carefully, Abigail, because you did not do anything wrong today. What they did to you was completely unforgivable and wrong.”
She looked down at her hands, looking ashamed of her own body. “Are they going to stop loving me now?”
I felt like something inside of me was breaking into pieces that could never be repaired. “The problem is not you, my love, and it has never been you.”
As I drove back home, I did not say another word because I knew that if I opened my mouth, I would explode with rage. I did not want my daughter to bear the brunt of my fury, so I kept my eyes on the road. When we arrived home, I laid her down on the comfortable couch with a light blanket over her shoulders.
I prepared some electrolytes, turned on her favorite cartoon to distract her, and sat beside her until she finally stopped shivering. Every few minutes, she reached out to touch my hand to make sure I was still sitting right there.
“Mommy, are you feeling angry with me?” she whispered.
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