I bought my husband his dream watch for our 10th anniversary.<\/p>\n
All he got me was a cheap perfume in a plastic bottle.<\/p>\n
I remember forcing a smile that night, but inside I was disappointed \u2014 hurt, even. After everything we\u2019d been through, after the years of saving and sacrificing, I thought I deserved more than something that looked like it came from a clearance shelf. When we got home, I tossed it aside and never used it.<\/p>\n
Three weeks later, he died unexpectedly.<\/p>\n
That was our last celebration together.<\/p>\n
The grief was unbearable, but what haunted me most wasn\u2019t the gift anymore \u2014 it was my reaction. I replayed that night over and over, wishing I had just hugged him tighter instead of silently judging what he gave me. I missed everything about him. His laugh. His voice. The way he\u2019d remind me to drink water when I got too busy.<\/p>\n
Today, while cleaning, that perfume bottle slipped from a shelf and hit the floor. The cap popped off, and something small fell out.<\/p>\n
A folded piece of paper.<\/p>\n
My hands shook as I opened it.<\/p>\n
Inside was a handwritten note:<\/p>\n
\u201cI know this perfume is temporary, but next month I\u2019ll surprise you with the necklace you\u2019ve been dreaming about. Thank you for believing in me even when I don\u2019t say it enough. You are my forever gift.\u201d<\/p>\n
I sank to the floor and cried harder than I had in months \u2014 because it was never just perfume.<\/p>\n
It was a promise he never got the chance to keep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I bought my husband his dream watch for our 10th anniversary. All he got me was a cheap perfume in a plastic bottle. I remember forcing a smile that night, but inside I was disappointed \u2014 hurt, even. After everything we\u2019d been through, after the years of saving and sacrificing, I thought I deserved more …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4519","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\/4519","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=4519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4521,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4519\/revisions\/4521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}