From Memory...
My grandmother’s necklace

This necklace was gifted to me by my grandmother in Basra before I left Iraq in the summer of 1979 under difficult circumstances. At the time, I did not intend to stay in Britain, nor did I know that I would never see my grandmother again. We unfortunately lost her during the Iraq-Iran war, when shrapnel from a missile hit our house and neighborhood in Basra.

It is for this very reason that this necklace has a special place in my heart. During my years abroad, the necklace stirred in me a longing for my grandmother and brought back memories of my family and our home in Basra... which I have not had the opportunity to visit since.

Those images remain engraved in my mind and appear whenever I look at my grandmother’s necklace.
Nedal