My grandma has always given me a plastic sheep on my birthday ever since I was 7. Because I believed she had some memory issues, I always acted surprised whenever I opened the box. Recently, my brother pulled me aside, his face full of worry.<\/p>\n
Him: \u201cYou really don\u2019t get it, do you?\u201d<\/p>\n
Me: \u201cGet what?\u201d<\/p>\n
Then he pointed to the underside of the sheep and said, \u201cNext time, try to be more alert.\u201d<\/p>\n
I flipped it over. Etched into the base, in Grandma\u2019s shaky handwriting, were tiny numbers: 7, 8, 9\u2026 all the way to 27. Each sheep had a year. She hadn\u2019t forgotten\u2014she\u2019d been counting. Every gift was a milestone, a quiet promise she\u2019d be here.<\/p>\n
My throat closed. \u201cShe remembers everything,\u201d I whispered.<\/p>\n
My brother\u2019s eyes glistened. \u201cShe started when the doctor said she might not see you grow up. She wanted proof she did.\u201d<\/p>\n
That night, I lined the sheep on my shelf like soldiers. Grandma sat in her chair, frail but smiling. I knelt, took her hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get it now,\u201d I said. \u201cThank you for every year.\u201d<\/p>\n
She squeezed back. \u201cJust one left,\u201d she murmured, nodding at the empty spot for 28.<\/p>\n
I bought the final sheep myself\u2014white, perfect\u2014and hid it until her next breath. When the time came, I\u2019d place it in her hands. She\u2019d know she made it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My grandma has always given me a plastic sheep on my birthday ever since I was 7. Because I believed she had some memory issues, I always acted surprised whenever I opened the box. Recently, my brother pulled me aside, his face full of worry. Him: \u201cYou really don\u2019t get it, do you?\u201d Me: \u201cGet …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1017","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\/1017","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=1017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1019,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions\/1019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}