My older sister, Nina, is getting baptized, which means I must be 5 years old. There’s a very small chance, I’m only 4, about to turn 5, but it’s not likely. The whole family (minus Angus, he doesn’t exist yet) are at the church preparing for the great dunking. I don’t remember for certain, but it’s possible there will be many dunkings on the docket, and my sister is just one of them. It probably depends on where this is happening, California or Utah. I’m just not sure.
I’ve been left to my own devices and this really isn’t uncommon. I’m the youngest of four at this point and my family definitely feels hectic and overwhelming. Escaping in order to be alone is what I do best, and what I want most. I generally stay out of trouble, so I’m rarely pursued. I assume someone checks in on me to make sure I’m still around, but honestly, I have no idea. For all I know, I spend hours entirely alone and unchecked. Perhaps it was a missed opportunity. But I digress…
I’ve been left to my own devices, so I’m wandering around the church, exploring the areas of the church that are usually behind locked doors and inaccessible to me. I’m wearing black shiny shoes with bows on them. I’m in my Sunday best, though I have no memory of the dress itself, only the shoes. The shoes are important.
As I wander through unlocked and open doors, I find myself standing next to the baptismal font, aka the dunk tank. I’ve seen this before, but usually from a different angle. I’ve been in the seats watching someone be pushed below the surface of the water, but this time I’m standing to the side, the front is still blocked with one of those accordion walls that were all the rage in the 80s and 90s. The lights aren’t on yet, so I can’t see the waterline clearly, but I know there’s water in there. I know this is where my sister will experience the amazing ritual that is The Mormon Baptism.
For most Mormons (aka Latter Day Saints), baptism is the first ritual you participate in that you can actually remember. Others may have some unique experiences, but the standard for those “raised in the covenant” (more on that another time), this will be the big moment. You have reached the grand age of accountability. You are 8-years-old and capable of understanding what is good and what is sinful. You no longer have a free pass on committing sin, from this point forward, your sins will remain attached to you and the only way to cleanse yourself of them is to sincerely repent. Depending on how serious your sin is, you may be able to take care of that in prayer between you and God, or you may need to involve your ecclesiastical leader, the bishop, in order to fully and truly repent of your sin.
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EIGHT. YEARS. OLD. Do you remember what that age is like? At that age I still believed my father’s lie that if I ate a cherry pit, a cherry tree would grow out of my stomach and up my throat, with roots spilling out of my asshole. But I am old enough to understand the nuanced differences between good and evil. Between good intent and malintent. To this day I am confused.
But, let’s go back to the font. At this young (not yet fully accountable) age, I am staring at the water, excited and terrified for my sister. What will it feel like? Does it hurt? Can you feel the sin come off? However, even at 5-years-old, I understand enough to wish that I had not been born into a Mormon family. It seems so much better to spend your life doing all the sins, having all the fun, and then, as an adult ready to be done with all that silly nonsense, THEN I discover “the truth”. Why should I be happy that I am washed of sin and held accountable before I’m old enough to really experience anything fun? I would much rather get that cleansing ritual, that free pass, exercised well into adulthood. When I’ve reached that age that I know is coming, where I will be too tired and too annoyed to have any fun anymore. No one has yet been able to adequately explain to me why this way is better.
I’m a curious kid, and this moment at the font is no different. I make the disastrous decision to take the first step into the font. I have assumed, wrongly, that the first step will not have water and it’s safe to enter just one step in. Instead, I immediately feel the warm water fully encase my foot, my frilly sock, and my shiny black shoe with a bow on it. It’s my right foot and it’s soaking wet. I have reared back, madly shaking my foot, and I know that I have done something deeply deeply wrong. So wrong in fact, that I am not sure that my own eventual baptism will clear me of this sin. I have entered sacred waters too early. I have learned that I cannot do this before I am ready and I have done what has so clearly been spelled out to me as wrong. I have violated God’s plan, God’s law. Am I doomed? Is there any recovery from this? Of one thing I am certain, I absolutely cannot let anyone know what I have done.
I run to an empty bathroom and dry my foot, sock, and shoe as best I can with paper towels and I return to the room where families will be sitting to watch the baptisms of their loved ones. I sit sullenly, eventually moving to sit with my family as they come in and find seats. Maybe someone notices I am quieter than normal, maybe not. It is my sister’s day after all. But I am silent, consumed by my fears, but knowing there is no one I can talk to about this. All I can do is pretend I have done nothing wrong and hope that one day I am able to repent of this. I will have to be perfect. I can never do anything wrong again. My age of accountability has started early, perhaps if I never sin again, I will be forgiven for having broken this sacred law. I have no memory of my sister actually being baptized, only of fear.
When all are dunked and families are milling around waiting for children to dry off and change back into their Sunday best, I have noticed that the bow of my right shoe has fallen off. This only confirms what I believe. There’s no way that simple, unblessed, water could have done this. My actual shoe is falling to pieces because it should never have been in that font, and worse still, now there is visible evidence of my sin. I hide the bow behind a piano and hope my shoe will go unnoticed. This is not without precedent. As I’ve said before, there are 4 children at this point, and we are not an organized and calm family. We are disarray and commotion. We only play at happy family in public, because the most important thing in all our lives is how my mother looks to others.
In this one small way I am rewarded, my shoe is not noticed. I’m sure eventually my mother realized I had a shoe with a missing bow and both shoes were disposed of or given away. I know I never wore them again, I was afraid of them, of what they told about me. They disappeared from my life, and with them, my secret. This, in fact, is my very first telling. Only recently, nearly 40 years later, did I remember this day while also realizing how meaningless these events actually were. What sticks with me most of all was how afraid I was to tell the truth. I knew then, as I know now, that this would not have been viewed as a harmless accident. This was bad behavior that would have reflected poorly on my mother had it been discovered. The punishment would definitely have fit the crime as I imagined it then. I did not fully understand that my sin was not against God, but against Mommy, but I did know that the risk of a secret was far safer than confessing my sin, and my fear.
