In 2007 we travelled to MacLeod Ganj in India, also known as Little Lhasa where the Dalai Lama fled to in 1959 and established the Tibet Government-in-exile.
We were walking along s little road when we passed a stall that had a basket, packed full of lapis lazuli beads. I knelt down and picked a bag full of them. When I asked the lady the price, what she asked for was incredibly low. I insisted on giving her more and promptly left!
I threaded the beads into a necklace, which I then permanently wore around my neck.
When my Mum and Dad accompanied us to Manchester Airport in June 2007 to go and live in Melbourne, our plane was called and I quickly took off my necklace and put it around my Mum's neck as we said goodbye.
Apparently, a week before my TBI, that necklace broke from my Mum's neck, dropped off and was never seen again. When my TBI happened, my Mum firmly believed that the lost necklace was a sign that something bad was going to happen.
Back to the present day. For the last few months, I've been looking for lapis lazuli beads online. I eventually found a few strands for sale, including some beautiful old beads from Afganistan, several thousand years old. I rethreaded them.
On Christmas Day this year, I had my Mum look at a few photos I'd had printed of me wearing the necklace and of the basket of beads from which I'd picked the original beads.
I then let her open the present. A new lapis lazuli necklace I'd made for her.
She cried.
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