Grandma throws open the ugly pink and blue checkered print curtains of my bedroom window to wake me. I’m only seven, but I already know mornings are stupid, and I hate them more than I hate broccoli. Just like I do every morning, I stretch my arms up and my legs down as hard as I can until I feel dizzy, and then I rub my eyes extra hard until I can see the Milky Way. I begin to daydream about maybe one day going to the stars and being the first woman on the moon when the slam of my sock drawer jars me back to reality. Grandma, in her most annoying bright-eyed, sing-song voice, which is far too early for me to handle without being annoyed, tells me to, “Rise and shine, sleepyhead! Today is the big day that God is going to bless you into his Kingdom!” I’m not quite sure what that means, but I can tell she’s excited. I know it’s a big deal because she’s pulling out my fancy blue and white bibbed dress with the ruffles at the bottom that fans out mesmerizingly when I spin myself in circles around and around and around…

Grandma ushers me into the bathroom to start work on my forever knotted hair. She mumbles to herself about how impossible it is to get the brush through my “goddamn snarls” like she does every morning. Despite her frustration, she refuses to let her hairdresser, Dottie, cut it because she loves it long. I want it short, but nobody cares what I think, and I’ve learned not to argue the subject. I may be young, but I know that my hair is going to be a problem for me my whole life, and I pout silently to myself that one day I’ll be forced to take care of it on my own without the help of grandma.

While she tugs and yanks my hair back trying to get it up into a half pony forgetting yet again that there is a person attached to it, she decides that it’s probably a good time to explain to me why today is so important and what exactly is going to happen. She says that we’ll all be heading to the church soon where our pastor, wearing a beautiful white robe, will submerge my head into a bowl of water while he blesses me into the Kingdom of Heaven. I can feel my face skew and my cheeks growing hot as the panic and fear begins to rise from my chest. You know when you drink a can of pop too fast, and you can feel every last fizz pop, pop, popping down your chest as it makes its way towards your tummy? That’s how fear feels. In my mind, what this crazy woman with the hairbrush just told me is that her and grandpa are taking me to church to have me drowned by a fat man in a white robe. As that thought begins to sink in, the tears began to seep out.

I spend the rest of the morning inconsolable. Snot is surging from my nostrils like water from an erupting geyser, and I’m gasping to catch my breath through the tears. My grandma doesn’t understand what my problem is because I haven’t yet vocalized that the reason I’m beside myself is I think she is sending me to church to die, but because I’m always overly dramatic as she tells me, she shrugs it off as just another tantrum. I mean, her and grandpa sometimes joke that if I misbehave they’ll feed me to the wolves, but that was always just meant to be funny… right? My mind begins to go into overdrive searching for things I may have done wrong that would upset my grandparents so much they would go to such drastic measures as to have me killed off. Is it because I refused to eat the nasty brussels sprouts she put on my plate last night during dinner? Is it because I made them watch the Garfield Halloween Special on repeat the whole weekend even though Halloween was over nine months ago? Is it because she’s sick of brushing my goddamn snarls all the time?

Realizing that we’re starting to run behind schedule, grandma insists I stop crying as my constant trembling is making it impossible for her finish styling my hair. I take a few deep breaths to try and compose myself, and my trembling begins to slow down as my sobs slowly turn into whimpers. Finally calm enough that I’m no longer shaking, she puts the finishing touches on the half-pony she’s styled my hair into by adding a blue and white striped bow with white ruffles in the center that matches my dress perfectly. Grabbing me by the shoulders, she quickly turns my body to face her and tells me to stand like a little soldier so she can inspect me. She looks me up and down, down and up, and then up and down again before she smiles to herself and says, “You could be a little model for the Sears catalogue,” followed by her nodding her head towards the door in order to signify we’re done here and it’s time to go. I leave the bathroom still trying to choke back the sobs, and I slide down the long, narrow staircase on my belly towards the front door. I put on my favorite pair of black and white saddle shoes that usually bring me a lot of joy because I like the clickity-clack sound they make when I walk on the hard floor, but today I’m not feeling them so much. In fact, my once favorite outfit has turned into the outfit of death, and I suddenly realize that even if I do survive what’s in store for me today, I will probably never want to wear any of this stuff again.

Walking from the front door to our brand-new mustard yellow 1987 Dodge Caravan that I’ve witnessed my grandpa wax with a diaper on more than one occasion, I start to take in the scenery around me and feel a sense of sadness that this may be the last time I ever get to see the lovely fields of corn in the large field behind our house or the wild flowers that grow in the woods surrounding the edges of our cul-de-sac. As grandpa starts to buckle me into the back seat, I continue admiring the world around me; it’s a particularly nice fall day, and the sky is blue with specks of fluffy white clouds dotting the sky while the orange and brown leaves that have died and fallen from the trees lay scattered across the now brown grass. I’m so caught up in my own thoughts that I don’t even realize we’ve pulled into the church parking lot. Grandpa unstraps me, and I slowly climb out of the van staring in amazement at the church that seems to have grown larger and scarier since I was here last week. I’ve been here a hundred times and have never thought much of it, but today as I look up at the enormous building with its red bricks, large wooden doors, and the steeple almost so tall it could reach the sky, I can’t help but feel that fear from earlier rising up in my chest again.

Walking into the church, I scan the room attempting to drink in the view that surrounds me: the tall, brown-oak paneled walls that houses the crucifixes and beautiful stained glass windows that look like magic when the sunlight hits it just right; the altar where many large, white candles stand surrounding the large brown bowl full of water that I immediately recognize as my instrument of death, and our pastor standing beside the bowl wearing a beautiful white robe just as grandma had said. And then I notice my entire family sitting in the pews. Everyone is smiling and laughing, all of them wearing their Sunday best. I notice my mom first sitting in the front pew wearing the only dress she owns: a red and blue floral-patterned monstrosity that hangs at the knees with shoulder pads so large she looks as wide as one of those football players I see on the television nearly every weekend. To her left sits my grandma’s sister, Ramona, who I’m told will be my godmother, whatever that means; she is wearing a beautiful blue silk dress that falls at her ankles with white strappy heels on her feet. And is… is that my dad a couple pews over? He’s really here? In a suit no less? My parents never dress up, especially my mom, and I haven’t seen or heard from my dad in at least a year. Did my whole family seriously get themselves all dressed up to come and watch me be killed off by this man in a white robe?

Although I’m no longer crying at this point, my grandma can see the fear and confusion in my face again. She finally has the presence of mind to ask me what is troubling me so much which causes me to break down into tears again.

Looking up at her pitifully, I whimper, “I don’t understand what I did wrong. Why don’t you and grandpa want me anymore?”

“What do you mean what you did wrong, Jen? What makes you think we don’t want you anymore?” she asks calmly, gently stroking my cheeks with the back of her index finger and wiping away the salty, hot tears that are slowly making their way towards the bib of my dress and that have begun to pool around my collar bone.

Through the sniffles and near hyperventilation, I explain that I think this whole ritual is my grandparents having me drowned and sending me to Heaven to be blessed by God.

She laughs, “Oh, honey, nobody is trying to get rid of you. No one is going to drown you. He’s only going to dunk your head in the water for a second. The worst you’ll experience is a wet face.” She laughs again, “Well, probably not wetter than it already is. Now stop your fussing. Once we’re done here, the whole family is coming to the house, and we’re going to eat until our stomachs burst. I made your favorite: fried chicken with all the fixings.”

Almost immediately the tears stop as I come to realize that all my fears had been unfounded. No one had said I was going to die or that I was going to heaven today; I had just created that scenario in my own mind as I do with almost anything that scares me. “Classic Jenny and her classic tantrums,” I can almost hear my grandma say as she always does when I cry about the ghosts haunting my bedroom or the monsters under my bed who want to kidnap me. But she knows me well, because with the enticement of fried chicken, I finally begin to feel relaxed, and I am now officially all in for this baptism thingamajig. She looks down at me with her hand extended in my direction, wiggling her fingers indicating I am to give her mine. I place my hand firmly in hers, look up at her, finally cracking a smile, and I begin to skip my way down the aisle towards the altar singing the jingle from my favorite commercial, “It’s so nice, nice to feel, so good about a meal. So good about Kentucky Fried Chicken.”