Rachel's baptism day was set for February 6. We were really excited about this days approach. As you know, we had a memorable photoshoot in January in preparation for the occasion, and, as promised, here are more of them:
I designed an invitation and got it printed on this beautiful, pearl finished paper. I was really proud of them because I watercolored the flowers, took the picture, and designed the text, and I LOVED how it turned out.
As the day was approaching, I couldn't help but think of my niece, Amber, who is just over six months older than Rachel. Amber and Rachel are cousin besties, and Amber hadn't been baptized yet, in large part, thanks to Covid-19. I kept thinking that it would be really neat if Rachel and Amber could be baptized on the same day, in the same place, at nearly the same time. I broached the subject with my sister, Chelsea, to see what she thought. After some back and forth, she decided that that was what we should do. Chelsea said, "I don't want to have to do anything for this. I just want to show up at the church and have everything ready." (Don't be harsh with her. She knows I tend to go over the top, and she also is really busy with her job. Also, I'd sprung this on her.) After some inquiries around my stake, and some inquiries at my mom's stake, we discovered we needed to go to Idaho to make this happen.
I went back to my friend's boutique and bought Amber another dress exactly like Rachel's, save the size, and tried to figure out how to get to Ogden to take Amber's baptism pictures. I'd been making a special baptism book for Rachel which involved notes from her family members, and I couldn't give a book like that to Rachel and not make one for Amber. It was about this time that Chelsea tested positive for Covid. Thomas had already tested positive. And all the kids were sick. What would we do? We needed a miracle!
Chelsea's doctor wouldn't prescribe any medicine to help her, so I offered one of my inhaler refills to her. I'm normally not one to share prescriptions, but I knew that this particular inhaler had saved me, and I couldn't not help. By this time, Chelsea's girls were feeling better, so I arranged to meet nieces Heather and Amber at the Ogden temple, take pictures of Amber, and deliver the inhaler to Chelsea via Heather. Within twenty minutes of making this plan, I was on my way to Ogden, inhaler in my possession and my camera in my car. The grounds were closing soon after we arrived, but the groundskeeper was really kind and let us do our shoot. They turned out pretty good.
With lots and lots of prayers for healing, we proceeded as if everything was going to work out. I finished both baptism books and they arrived in time to make the trip to Idaho. Chelsea felt well enough to make the trip with her girls(and was through her quarantine time). Unfortunately, Thomas was still struggling with Covid. He was too sick to travel (and had to be on oxygen), and Matthew stayed with him for the weekend to provide care.
We arrived at my mom's house the day before the baptism, and the kids had a chance to hang out and...dance together?
Brian practiced the baptism motions with both girls. We did a technology check by starting a zoom meeting and practicing using the mic and the slideshow so that we wouldn't have any hiccups. We went to bed feeling pretty good about the whole thing.
The next morning, at the appointed time, we headed to the church to get everyone changed into white clothing and to take a few pictures.
The plan was to have my grandpa baptize Amber since Thomas wasn't able to.
Thanks to the pandemic, we all wore masks and only immediate family was allowed to be there in person. This included grandparents, so we had our family of five, Chelsea and her girls, my mom, Brian's mom and dad (who drove up from Utah the night before and stayed with my grandparents), my grandparents, and Chelsea's mother-in-law. There were a few people from my mom's stake and ward there helping as well.
Heather gave a talk on baptism, and then we headed to the room with the font. We'd had a few technology struggles, but things were going well. We'd decided that since Amber was older, she should be baptized first. My Grandpa and Amber went into the water, he said the prayer, and began to lay her down in the water, and then the struggle began.
Hindsight is 20/20, right? Amber is really tall, and the water was not nearly high enough for her tall frame. We should have practiced the actual baptizing with my grandpa the night before, but he was over at his house, and we didn't take into account that it had been a few years since he performed a baptism. Could'a, would'a, should'a.
Baptism is supposed to be by immersion, which means every single part of a person needs to be underwater at once. When my grandpa laid her down, she had to bend really far backwards because of the low water, he didn't remember he needed to step on her toes to keep them from coming up, and when Amber panicked, he wasn't strong enough to help her get under all the way, thanks to him catching Covid over Christmas (and the fact that he was almost 85 years old.) After that, she really, really didn't want to be in the water. To be clear, she still wanted to be baptized, but she was so scared of the water that she wouldn't go back in and let them try again.
We decided to go ahead and have Brian baptize Rachel. My mom and Julie served as witnesses, and Rachel's baptism went smoothly. We hung out by the font to see if Amber could be talked into going back in, but after a few minutes of unsuccessful coaxing, we decided that Rachel should just change back into her dry dress.
Chelsea was feeling embarrassed, and everyone was trying to help...which really wasn't helpful. We turned the video off on Zoom, and asked everyone to please stand by. The broadcast was just adding stress to an already stressful situation (though I did worry that our friends of other faiths that had turned in were thinking there were nefarious means of forcing her below the water happening and that's why I turned it off.) After a while, we decided to turn on the slideshow I'd made the period of time that I thought all four people who'd been in the font were changing into dry clothes. We just kept replaying it and replaying it.
A note about the slideshow. I always like to give fair representation to everyone, but the number of pictures of Amber that I had to work with was small in comparison to the pictures with Rachel. I tried to limit the pictures to only each girl's individual family members, a few grandparents, and that's it. But, since most of my pictures of Amber came from the Chadwick family reunions and get togethers, it was heavier on the Chadwick side, and the Savilles and Goods were barely represented. I stressed so much about this, but in the end, it was the best I could do. Chelsea loved it and laughed saying, "It looks like these two spent every day of their lives together!"
So, while the slideshow was playing in an endless loop, Chelsea and Thomas (joining via video call), had convinced Amber to get back in the font. They added more water to the font, and Brian got down in the water with Amber. Through a long, long process, he got her feeling more comfortable in the water. I'll never forget him just sitting down in the font like it was the most relaxing thing in the world, joking with Amber, and patiently waiting for her to overcome her fear. My grandpa sat on the steps leading into the font, quietly lending his support and love. It was decided that she didn't need to do the traditional method of baptizing her by tipping her backward. Instead, Brian would say the prayer, and she would essentially dunk herself by ducking under the water. She finally did this, but the top of her head didn't quite make it, so they attempted one final time. Brian said the prayer, Amber dunked herself, and Brian pushed the top of her head gently down, and Amber was officially baptized. I stopped the slideshow, and Rachel and I got ready for our piano duet. By the time we started the musical number, Brian and Grandpa were back in dry clothes, and everything proceeded as actually planned.
Both girls were confirmed; Rachel was confirmed by Brian, Amber by Grandpa. I gave a talk on walking the Covenant path--repenting when we make mistakes, partaking of the sacrament weekly, and continuing to have faith and keeping the commandments. We had a closing song and prayer, and then we let everyone on Zoom say hi and bye.
I asked the girls how they both felt, and I was worried that Amber would only remember her fear and that her fear would outweigh any good feelings that one usually feels on their baptism day. With a smile on her face, she told me that she felt really good inside and felt a lot of peace and joy about her baptism. How grateful I was for everyone's patience and support in waiting for her to be ready.
We went back to my mom's for a very small party and lunch. I got someone to take a picture of our little family:
And Brian and I with Rach in her special dress.
And Chelsea requested that we take a picture with Brian and Amber since he was the one that ended up baptizing her.
I'm really sad that, thanks to the Pandemic, we never got pictures of Rachel with her grandparents. At Michael's baptism, I have a picture of him with his dad (who baptized him), with his witnesses (both his grandpas), with all the men in the confirmation circle, and with all his grandparents. We got none of those things for Rachel's big day, and I confess, I'm still bummed out about it. Kirt and Julie took off right after the baptism; they were nervous about being around everyone. I'm grateful that they came despite the risk. Not everyone got to be so blessed. So, even though most of the people involved are not photographed, may this record ever show that they were in attendance, and both girls felt loved and supported.
And the girls in their dresses:
They got presents:
including the baptism books I had made.
and
I guess we'll never know. Just kidding. They got scripture cases from their Grandma Chadwick, and Rachel got scriptures from us. They also got a beautiful necklace from Grandma Linville.
Their baptism books had a page for them to write their feelings about the day, and they took some time in the midst of all the excitement to write a few lines down.
We played games with Grandma & Grandpa Linville, all of us joking about what happened earlier, including Grandpa getting fired halfway through the baptism. He took it all really well.
Someone remembered about my mom's Barbies, and we brought them out to show the girls. My mom has one of the first styles of Barbies ever made, and she pointed out the improvements made over just the few years that she had Barbies.
Check out this awesome case. There are fold-down beds inside. We always loved when Mom let us play with her Barbies, which was incredibly rare. She, rightly so, didn't trust us with her Barbies.
After hugs
The girls and everyone headed off to bed.
The next morning, we had church, and one of us caught Rachel reading her new scriptures.
I took a selfie with my mom
or two.
And then we stopped by the cemetery on our way out of town to say Hi to Dad.
Chelsea told me that one of the big reasons, besides the pandemic, that she hadn't made arrangements for Amber's baptism was because it would be the first baptism that Dad wouldn't be involved in. He'd participated in some way in her other three children's baptisms, and it was hard to try to plan this last one knowing he wouldn't be able to participate. I think this made the complications with Amber's baptism even harder on her. Sometimes, it's hard moving on with life now that he's gone. We miss him so much, especially on these big milestone events.
While at the cemetery, I had a strange urge.
I made Dad a snowman. It was perhaps a bit irreverent to be chuckling while I tried to get pine needles to stick into the old snow, but I figured he'd appreciate me laughing and finding joy during a visit instead of always crying.
I'm so proud of Rachel and her decision to be baptized. She told me that she's just one of those girls who's going to follow the Lord. I hope that she always does.
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