I spent three weeks sewing a beautiful fairy costume for my eight-year-old granddaughter, Lily. But when my daughter-in-law Elizabeth saw it, she laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow she can wear a real costume,\u201d she said, showing off a $300 designer outfit.<\/p>\n
Lily hugged my handmade dress. \u201cI like Grandma\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elizabeth looked furious.<\/p>\n
Later, Lily discovered an old green fairy costume inside my late mother\u2019s cedar trunk. It looked almost identical to mine.<\/p>\n
Then she found a label: \u201cLily, age 8.\u201d<\/p>\n
My heart stopped.<\/p>\n
The costume had belonged to my daughter, Lily, who died years earlier. My granddaughter had been named after her.<\/p>\n
Inside the trunk, I discovered letters explaining why my mother had never finished it.<\/p>\n
Years ago, we’d argued because she constantly interfered with my parenting. She withdrew afterward, believing I no longer wanted her involved.<\/p>\n
One sentence in her letter broke me:<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was always room for Lily to love us both.\u201d<\/p>\n
Suddenly, I understood Elizabeth’s jealousy. She feared Lily loved her grandmother more.<\/p>\n
We talked, cried, and finally understood each other.<\/p>\n
On Halloween, Lily wore my handmade dress with Elizabeth\u2019s sparkling wand.<\/p>\n
Neither of us had lost her love.<\/p>\n
Days later, I finished my mother’s unfinished costume and showed Lily old family photographs.<\/p>\n
This time, when Elizabeth arrived, I invited her to sit beside us.<\/p>\n
Love was never a competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I spent three weeks sewing a beautiful fairy costume for my eight-year-old granddaughter, Lily. But when my daughter-in-law Elizabeth saw it, she laughed. \u201cNow she can wear a real costume,\u201d she said, showing off a $300 designer outfit. Lily hugged my handmade dress. \u201cI like Grandma\u2019s.\u201d Elizabeth looked furious. Later, Lily discovered an old green …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10340","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\/10340","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=10340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10342,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10340\/revisions\/10342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}