My late nana always said, “You’re my favorite.” She’d whisper it with a wink whenever she handed me an extra cookie or asked me to stay a little longer after dinner. But when she passed, those words felt like nothing more than a sweet memory. At the will reading, my cousins walked out with jewelry, money, and pieces of antique furniture. All I received was her old cat, Pip.
Everyone laughed.
“Guess Nana really wanted you to have… a furball,” one cousin joked.
I didn’t care much about the stuff, but I couldn’t help wondering why she would insist I take Pip—and only Pip. Still, I brought the little tabby home and promised to take good care of her.
A few months later, Pip stopped eating. Panicked, I brought her to the same small clinic Nana had always gone to. The vet, an older man with kind eyes, examined Pip carefully. Then he looked at the collar, smiled softly, and said, “I see your nana really loved you.”
I froze.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He simply nodded at Pip’s collar. “Open it when you get home. She wanted you to find it when the time was right.”
My heart pounded all the way back to my apartment. Pip curled in my lap as I unclipped the old collar. Inside the lining, barely noticeable, was a tiny slit. I pulled, and out slipped a small folded note—yellowed at the edges, written in Nana’s handwriting.
It contained a name and number: her lawyer. But this wasn’t the same lawyer who had handled the will reading.
Confused, I called the number.
A woman answered warmly, almost as if she had been expecting my call. “Your grandmother instructed me to speak with you privately,” she said. “She set aside a separate trust—one that wasn’t meant to be revealed with the rest of the family.”
My breath caught. “Why… why me?”
“Because,” the lawyer replied gently, “she said you loved her without expecting anything in return.”
It turned out Nana had left me a significant portion of her estate—enough to change my life. And as Pip purred beside me, I finally understood: Nana knew the others cared about the inheritance. But she knew I cared about her.
And that was her final gift.
