After so many years of sitting in its box, the small emblem is coated in a thick layer of dust. Every year, I’d come back here - to my childhood home on a bitter sweet autumn evening.. the same time.. same weather.. same day.

I run a single finger over the golden thing, bringing back a touch of its former shine before opening it.. like usual, a family photo of a time when my grandparents were still alive and young. How could something so small take up so much space in my heart? Perhaps it was how my mother rubbed it whenever she was anxious or worried, how she passed it onto me after she grew sick and died weeks later.

Looking down at the photo, coloured in black and white. My mother small girl, wearing her hair in short braids, holding a small teddy bear. Whilst her parents stand with eachother, holding eachother, I get a familiar feeling in my chest. Nostalgia? Grief?

When I close the emblem, and put it back in its rightful place. I tell myself that one day I’ll have a family as beautiful as my mothers, and I’ll pass a similar necklace from generation to generation, just like those before me.