{"id":70617,"date":"2025-08-05T06:18:22","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T06:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=70617"},"modified":"2025-08-05T06:18:22","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T06:18:22","slug":"my-niece-came-home-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=70617","title":{"rendered":"My Niece Came Home From"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"512\" height=\"640\" src=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/image-137.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-70618\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/image-137.png 512w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/image-137-240x300.png 240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>After preschool, my niece ran up to me in a coral dress I\u2019d never seen before. Her usual shorts were gone. When I asked, she simply said, \u201cSwapped.\u201d Inside her cubby, I found a velvet purse with a note: \u201cShe wanted to be princess today. I consented.\u201d When I asked who gave her the dress, she said, \u201cHallway girl. Always has gum.\u201d Gum isn\u2019t allowed at school. And the girl? \u201cShe\u2019s in the hall,\u201d she said, like someone floating between places. That night, my sister recognized the dress pattern. \u201cFrom high school\u2026 Lydia,\u201d she whispered, clearly shaken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The next day, I spotted a girl by a sealed storage room at school. She vanished when I blinked. Later, I found another note in the velvet pouch: \u201cTomorrow is someone else\u2019s turn.\u201d Ms. Leena, the teacher, revealed a long-buried truth\u2014Lydia had choked on gum and died years ago. That night, my niece whispered, \u201cShe says it\u2019s my turn forever now.\u201d I returned to the school, followed the hallway, and found the storage room. Inside sat a little girl among piles of old clothes and forgotten things. She clutched a pair of sneakers marked \u201cLydia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI just wanted someone to remember me,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can still go home,\u201d I told her. She let go of the dress, the shoes, the pouch\u2014and disappeared. We donated all the items. My niece slipped a note in the pocket of the coral dress: \u201cYou can be remembered in good ways, too.\u201d Weeks later, construction crews found Lydia\u2019s old belongings during renovations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The school created a reading nook, and in the community room, the coral dress now hangs in a shadow box. A plaque reads: \u201cShe showed her magic. We remember.\u201d And whenever my niece says she feels like a princess, I believe her. Because now, somewhere, a little girl isn\u2019t lost anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=70568\">also read&#8230;.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After preschool, my niece ran up to me in a coral dress I\u2019d never seen before. Her usual shorts were gone. When I asked, she simply said,&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":70618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70617"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70619,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70617\/revisions\/70619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/70618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}