In a time when everyone writes to each other by sanitized email or text, there’s nothing quite like receiving a hand-written letter. You can see new facets of the sender’s personality through their handwriting, margin doodles, and even the way they scribble out mistakes. It’s raw, intimate, unedited, and ultimately very romantic.
Just look at this one Nick Sparks’ novel-worthy couple, Bill and Kristen. Bill has written his wife of 38 years a letter every day they have been together. How romantic is that? I couldn’t even get my ex-boyfriend to do the dishes on a daily basis! Kristen chose wisely and is now one lucky wifey.
Yet, as rich and complex as mature love can be, there’s nothing quite like the pure puppy love of teenagers. It’s a love so fresh and intense, it can make people do crazy things, which nine-year-old Nolan Rogers was soon to discover when he found something strange in the woods while his family was fishing at Lake Murray in South Carolina…
While Nolan was looking for adventure in the woods, he found something interesting that had washed ashore.
Initially, he thought he had stumbled upon pirate treasure – it wasn’t. But what was rolled inside of an old, glass Dr. Pepper bottle was truly a gem.
It was an old note that was faded and hard to read, but when Nolan showed it to his mom, Vicki Garrick, she immediately recognized something on it — a signature.
She took a picture of the note with her phone and texted the picture to a friend, Diane Bryant.
“As soon as I saw it,” Diane told ABC News, “I was like, oh my gosh, that's definitely me."
Diane had written the love letter in 1970, 45 years ago, when she was 13 and at the same lake with a church group. But whom the letter was intended for is the most bizarre part of this story.
The note was intended for Nolan's grandfather, Mike Rogers. Diane was Mike's ex-girlfriend.
Diane wrote the note to Mike while on the church trip that Mike couldn't come to. “Mike was a very bad boy, so it wasn't surprising," Diane said. She was heartbroken, so she penned the romantic note, put it in a bottle, and hoped Mike would stumble upon it when he vacationed at the lake with his family later that summer. Mike never saw it…until now.
The vintage note is hard to make out, but some phases shine through, like "I wish I could see you" and "I love you so much."
Though the two are no longer a couple — both have been happily married to other people for years — they remain close. Diane considers Mike her longest friend. "I know if I needed him, he'd be right there for me," she said.
Diane is keeping the note in a sheet protector with the bottle as a keepsake.
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