A year after cancer took my husband, Mike, I was still trying to help our four-year-old daughter, Mia, understand that Daddy wasn\u2019t coming home.<\/p>\n
Mike\u2019s best friend, Harold, had been helping us constantly after the funeral. He was also my boss.<\/p>\n
At a company pool party, Harold picked Mia up and carried her toward the water.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, she stared behind his ear and whispered:<\/p>\n
\u201cMommy, Daddy\u2019s there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harold went pale.<\/p>\n
Then I saw it\u2014a tiny compass tattoo behind his ear.<\/p>\n
Mike had the exact same tattoo.<\/p>\n
Mia used to trace it with her fingers every night.<\/p>\n
I later found old photos proving Harold never had that tattoo when they were younger.<\/p>\n
The next morning, I confronted him.<\/p>\n
Harold admitted he\u2019d gotten it six months earlier after Mike died. Years ago, Mike had asked him to get matching tattoos, but Harold had refused.<\/p>\n
After losing his best friend, he finally did it as a tribute.<\/p>\n
But there was more.<\/p>\n
Harold confessed that while helping Mia and me, he had started imagining us as his family. He was even renovating his house with a room for Mia in mind.<\/p>\n
He promised never to cross a line.<\/p>\n
Still, I realized I had become too dependent on him.<\/p>\n
I left my job and decided to rebuild my life independently.<\/p>\n
That evening, Mia hugged me tightly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know Daddy\u2019s not really there, Mommy,\u201d she whispered. \u201cI just miss him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMe too, baby,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A year after cancer took my husband, Mike, I was still trying to help our four-year-old daughter, Mia, understand that Daddy wasn\u2019t coming home. Mike\u2019s best friend, Harold, had been helping us constantly after the funeral. He was also my boss. At a company pool party, Harold picked Mia up and carried her toward the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10100,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10098\/revisions\/10100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}