High school sweethearts who lost touch in the 1950s reconnect 63 years later and fall in love again

If you ever feel unlucky in love, this inspiring tale across decades might just inspire you never to stop looking for it because it might pop up in the unlikeliest of places! Two teenagers, Caroline Reeves and Eddie Lamm, high school sweethearts in the 1950s, found their way back to each other after 63 years! Sometimes you get advice never to go back to your ex, but this might be one of the rare circumstances where things can end on a positive note.

The couple, now in the 80s, reconnected and even tied the knot. "We feel young again," said Reeves, 82, according to CBS News. "When you're in your 80s, you don't have to grow old. We keep our minds going and we're active and we have fun and laugh and tease and cut up and just want to just live as long—the best life we can live." While in school, Reeves thought Lamm was the cutest boy on campus and she was ready to spend her life with him. Lamm had his goals set on joining ROTC at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville with dreams of flying planes in the U.S. Air Force.

In Reeves' senior year in high school, Lamm went to drop her off back home and couldn't find the words to say a proper goodbye. "We pulled up in her driveway and I said, 'May I kiss you?' And so I kissed her goodnight, then, not knowing that that's the last time I would kiss her in 64 or 65 years," Lamm said, adding that he didn't follow up with, "Could I take you out? Could we go to a movie? Can I see you again before I leave?" Reeves was crushed. "I opened that car door and I got out of that car and ran up the steps and slammed the door and went upstairs and cried all night," she said. "That was it."

In 1961 the pair went off and married other people and lived separate lives. Lamm was married to Polly Piper for 60 years until she died of ALS in 2021. "It just shows you his strength and how sweet and kind and gentle this man is and always has been," Reeves said. Reeves's first marriage ended in the 1980s. She later married a man named George Kennedy, who died in 2001.

Lamm was living in California and Reeves was in Nashville when Lamm decided to check on how she was doing. The two had always wondered about the other all these decades. "All at once, something hits me. I said, 'I've got to call her,'" Lamm said and in April 2022, he did. He called her nine times before finally reaching her! "After the second day, it was comfortable. It was natural. By the third day, that third night, he told me he still loved me. And I knew my life had changed. And then the next morning, he calls and he says, 'I apologize for being so forward last night,'" she shared.

He finally flew to Nashville to see her and Reeves went to pick him up from the airport. "He peeked his head into my car and I just—he took my breath away," Reeves said. "I've never seen anything like it in my entire life. I just can't even explain it. So I got out of the parking lot, zoom, zoom, zoom, went around and found the FedEx parking lot. And it was the warehouse. It was closed at night and they had all these security lights. And I got out and jumped around and we hugged and kissed... and I remember looking up at the security lights and insects were swirling all around. So, FedEx does deliver," she said, bursting out laughing.

Five days later, he asked her to move with him to California and three months later, he popped the question at the age of 84. Reeves requested his high school class ring to be put on her finger. "And we asked God all the time, 'Why did you do this?' And now we know: to take care of each other," she said.