We asked our 2.5-year-old daughter a simple question one evening: \u201cHow many people live in our house?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We expected her to say four\u2014me, my husband, her, and her baby brother. Instead, without hesitation, she said, \u201cFive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We laughed at first, assuming she meant the cat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But she shook her head firmly. \u201cNo, Mommy. Daddy. Me. Little brother. And\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her voice trailed off, and she pointed toward the hallway. A hallway that was completely empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My husband and I exchanged uneasy glances. \u201cWho, sweetheart?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I asked gently, trying not to let my voice waver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe nice lady,\u201d she whispered. \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She sings to me when I can\u2019t sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The room grew quiet. We didn\u2019t know what to say. For days afterward, her words echoed in my head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Was it just her imagination?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kids her age often invent friends. But then I remembered something\u2014my grandmother,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
who had passed away long before my daughter was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She used to sing the very same lullaby I caught my daughter humming one night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t know if it was coincidence, memory, or something beyond us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that night, as I tucked her into bed, I realized something important: family isn\u2019t always counted in numbers you can see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes, love lingers. Sometimes, those who\u2019ve left still find a way to stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And maybe, just maybe, she was right. There are five of us in this house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We asked our 2.5-year-old daughter a simple question one evening: \u201cHow many people live in our house?\u201d We expected her to say four\u2014me, my husband, her, and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenewsbreeze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenewsbreeze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenewsbreeze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsbreeze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsbreeze.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsbreeze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1671,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsbreeze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670\/revisions\/1671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsbreeze.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenewsbreeze.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsbreeze.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsbreeze.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}