It’s a cross. It’s gold and fragile. Smooth on one side, etched with care on the other. I wear it around my neck with a plain gold chain. It’s beautiful and something I feel I have always been missing.

This summer four of my best friends and I were in a car crash, a pretty serious one. There’s no doubt the crash heavily impacted our lives. At the scene of the car crash, when I looked around in shock, I thought I was the only one alive. It was a wake-up call to say the least. All the doctors told us we should have died in such a high intensity crash. But we didn’t.

One of my closer friends out of the five of us, Sarah, was in the hospital for five days after our crash. One day when I went to see her, I brought her some things I thought she’d appreciate. One which was a Pandora charm bracelet. I dressed the bracelet nicely with two clips and some of my favorite charms, including one for good luck.

When I went home I was wishing that I could wear something for good luck as well. I decided to ask my mom is she had any cross pendants. She replied with, of course! I don’t really know why I asked her for it, I just felt like I wanted one. I was baptized when I was very young, and my nana was catholic and thought fondly of religion.

My mom handed me a cross. I looked at her and told her it was perfect. And she told me this…

“Mariah, that cross is very special. That cross was given to nana by your grandfather before he passed away. Then once I was old enough she gave it to me. I wore this very cross when I gave birth to you.”