Everything happens for a reason, or so my mother tells me. I’m not entirely convinced, but every now and then, I hear a story where destiny is the only obvious explanation.
Regardless, the way this 25-year-old mystery plays out is at least one heck of a coincidence.
Whether fate played a role, I can’t be sure, but I can’t help thinking that it did.
On July 4th, Ben Meyers and his 11-year-old nephew were fishing off a dock on Lake Hartwell in South Carolina. The water was clear, and at first, the two fishermen were coming up empty.
Then, Ben’s nephew felt a pull on his line and started to reel in what seemed like a big catch. But what the boy dragged up from the bottom of the lake shocked his uncle.
“I get my net and he gets it to the top of the water, all of a sudden I see it’s a purse. I said ‘man you ain’t caught no fish, you caught a treasure!'” Ben told Fox Carolina.
Ben opened the bag and found a perfect time capsule from the early 90s inside. There were long-expired credit cards, old makeup, an 80s-90s-style comb perfect for teasing up hair, and most importantly, some baby pictures.
Ben didn’t recognize the child in the pictures, but he did recognize the name on the credit cards: April Bolt.
It turns out that April is actually a friend of Ben’s. On a summer day in 1992, she docked her boat on Lake Hartwell and hid her bag onboard while she and her husband had dinner with his parents. But when they returned to the boat after their meal, the bag was gone.
“I was devastated, I was crying. My little boy was 15 months old and all his pictures were in there,” April told Fox Carolina.
But now, some 25 years later, April has been reunited with her bag. Ben returned the bag to a grateful April and the mystery has been mostly resolved – all thanks to an incredible coincidence.
“I couldn’t believe it. I was lost for words. You never think you’d see it again,” April said.
As they say, if it’s meant to be, it will happen. I hope that as many people as possible read this fascinating story. If one share can brighten someone’s day, then it’s worth it.
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