baptism

when my youngest brother diego turned 11, it was decided that he would be baptized. i had been baptized when i was 3, my other brother louie when he was 4, and it seemed that diego would be spared because he had lived through his single digit birthdays without incident. my mother had gone through a period of dubiety where she stopped believing in god; my guess is she didn't trust or understand a god who would allow her daughter to be a promiscuous pothead when she paid several thousand a year in tuition for a good catholic education. on the morning of his baptism, diego decided to shave for the first time. inexperienced as he was, he dragged the razor horizontally across his upper lip and nicked himself. he said when they sprinkled the holy water across his face, it burned.