Josephine's Cross

Looking for a necklace today I found, in the bottom of my jewelry box, an old cross that had belonged to my grandmother. Thin, worn, maybe two kinds of gold with a dark intricate Jesus on the cross. It’s a crucifix.

For years this cross was in a small old fashioned change purse that my mother had saved from her mother's things. I was told as a kid that this small change purse with its cross, old coins, a broken trunk from a china elephant and other small trinkets were what my grandmother Josephine took with her to poker games. She was a gambler. She supported her family playing cards.

What I realized today when I lifted it from the jewelry box was that it made no sense for this grandmother to have a crucifix. She was German, and from a Jewish family at some point. But even in America she was part of a Protestant Church. So why a crucifix? Because she was a gambler. She bet the odds, took chances, risked it all, dared and often won the pot.

I never met Josephine. She died when my mother was 19 years old. But a psychic once told me that Josephine was my guardian that she was looking out for me. I want that to be true now. I need Josephine’s energy and spirit and most of all her survival skills. A German Jew playing poker, rolling cigars, bringing home money to her family and holding tight to a small satin coin bag with a crucifix --just in case. I need Josephine now just in case.