One quiet evening, we asked our 2.5-year-old daughter how many people lived in our house. “Five,” she answered without hesitation. We laughed, thinking she meant the cat. But she pointed to the empty hallway and said softly, “The nice lady. She sings to me when I can’t sleep.”
We brushed it off as imagination — until one night, I heard her humming a lullaby. It was the same one my grandmother used to sing, long before my daughter was born.
Whether it’s coincidence or something more, I’ve come to believe what she said was true. Maybe love doesn’t leave when life does. Maybe the ones we’ve lost find gentle ways to stay.
There are four of us we can see. But in the quiet moments, in the lullabies, in the comfort she feels…
Maybe there are five.
