A World War II veteran has been reunited with an emotional love letter he sent his late wife 70 years before they were married.
Ninety-year-old Bill Moore, wrote this tear-jerking note to Bernadean Gibson while he was serving in Europe during the second world war.
After being separated during the war, Moore knew that he wanted Gibson to be his wife.
"When you're apart for that reason," Moore said, "not knowing if and when you'd ever see that person again, every chance you got to communicate was just wonderful."
The couple met when she was still in high school. When Moore returned home, he married the love of his life and they had three children together.
They remained happily together for 63 years before Gibson passed away in April 2010. After she died, Moore sold many of his possessions before moving into an assisted-care facility for veterans. This is how he believes his letter got lost.
The letter dated December 29, 1944 had been missing for decades and was later found by a woman inside of a record sleeve she had purchased from a thrift store.
"I was really surprised," Moore said. "I had no way of knowing it would show up in the way it did, and it would actually reach me."
Irene Ortiz tracked down it's rightful owner and in an emotional interview, Moore read the handwritten note he penned when he was just 20 years old.
"My darling, lovable, alluring, Bernadean," the letter begins.
Moore acknowledges that he could have written a lot more adjectives to describe his sweetheart, but ran out out of space on the page.
"You are so lovely, darling, that I often wonder how it is possible that you are mine," he continued. "I'm really the luckiest guy in the world, you know. And you are the reason, Bernadean. Even your name sounds lovely to me."
You can tell by the words he writes how much he loves and misses the woman he would end up marrying.
"It's just when I get so horribly, terribly lonely for you that I write letters like this. I have never been so homesick for anyone in my life as I am for you," he said.
Melinda Gale, Moore and Gibson's daughter, held back tears when she read the touching letter her dad wrote her mom nearly 70 years ago.
"It's truly was a window into how deep their love was. And obviously, they were married for almost 63 years. We knew they loved each other very, very much, but as children you don't see that. Where it came from, that deep connection, and this was a window into their story. He was a mechanical engineer. I cannot believe he shared these deep emotional words with her," she said.
Gale and her sister, who is a history teacher, took a treat in 2000 to Europe to retrace her father's steps during the war.
"Mom had never gotten to see everywhere he had been. We did this amazing trip so I can picture exactly where he was on December 29 of 1944, sitting in this miserable, cold, dark forest in the northern region where France, Germany and Belgium all meet," she said.
Moore admits that he misses his wife terribly and that he finds it difficult to share her memories, even though she is always on his mind.
"It's difficult talking out loud about it to other people," he said. "But I loved her, and she loved me. That's all I can tell you. It's a heartache not being with her all the time."
Source: Daily Mail / Daily Mail / Denver 7