I watched as they led old people, young people, babies even, down to the black water and into the waiting arms of the preacher. I watched them be dipped backwards, some of them plugging their noses, and I sensed the emotion that seemed to coincide with their emergence from the water - their hair slicked back, their faces shiny with wetness. I watched them take my cousins, all four of them, down one at a time but they never came for me. I remember feeling hurt by this. I remember standing on the rocky bank and thinking that I was not acceptable - simply not good enough - because my mother was sick.
Brave and wonderful.
