Starting on my eighth birthday, Grandpa Henry began giving me the same strange gift every year — a single green plastic soldier, wrapped in old newspaper, no card, no explanation. “Every army needs a leader,” he’d say with a twinkle in his eye, but never more than that. By the time I was twenty-six, I had eighteen soldiers lined up on my shelf.
I thought it was just one of his quirks — until he passed away. One afternoon, my sister picked one up, flipped it over, and froze. “You’ve never noticed this?” Each soldier had a tiny number and year etched into its base.
What happened next changed everything…
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