Week 36.

This week Savannah was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The sister who spoke at the baptism explained to the kids how this was like a second birth and I was undone when I saw her walking down the hall holding David's hand in her bare feet. Those bare feet reminded me palpably of her other birth. The greatest blessing of my week came as Savannah came out of the water and I got to help her out of her soaking wet dress, heavy from the water filling the layers of organza and satin and netting. As I unzipped her dress and wrapped the towel around her eight-year-old body, I keenly felt the differences in the way I wrapped her now and the way I had swaddled her at her birth. I could see how much she had grown, how much she knew, how capable she was, and how much my role as her mother had changed, and had to swallow tears of equal joy and grief. As I combed her wet hair and tied her velvet ribbon, I felt distinctly how she now belonged to her Heavenly Father and in a moment of perfect clarity, how she always had. I felt so grateful for the privilege of simply being the one to help her in and out of her dress, as it were, just as I had been the one to help her into her sweet little body on a Tuesday morning more than eight years ago. I stood in awe of the plan of happiness, of a Father's love for His children, and the power of ordinances to seal us His. And I was so grateful to have been a witness to my girl's birth, twice now.