It's easy to think of all the neat gifts you will get on your confirmation day. Your mom will buy you a nice white dress, and the perfect shoes to match. You will have pretty hair and invite your whole family. You'll get the usually Black Hills Gold cross necklaces that you'll lose in a week because you can't keep jewelry, or a new flashy bible to go along with the 3 you already have. But there is one gift that you will get that will have deeper meaning than you could have ever imagined. For me, it was a simple silver crucifix.
It wasn't anything real fancy, just plan gray medal, with a cute ribbon design wrapped around the center. It had a cirle hole at the top so you could hang it above your bed post when you slept so God would protect you. The Lutheran Churches of Nebraska gave each of the three kids in my confirmation class one. What the other two did with theirs I don't actually know. I hung mine above my bed against the echo blue paint for 3 years until I found a much better use for it.
I took the crucifix with me along with several items that reminded me of her. I drove the 7 miles to the hill where the dead lay to rest. I pushed past the metal gate, walking around the graves making sure not to step on a single one. I walked until I reached the very back of the cemetary to the freshly dug soil where several flowers, windchimes, and solar panel lights outlined her grave. I knelt to the soil, and held the crucifix in my hand. I looked up at the sky and prayed to God to take care of my best friend and to protect her. I stuck the cross in the ground right next to the photo of us, so God would know to protect her in heaven, and me on earth.
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