No words can adequately describe how you feel when you lose someone you love.
It’s honestly the worst feeling you’ll ever experience in your life.
Here’s Dave Lacey who had to go through the painful experience losing not only the love of his life, but also his most prized possession that reminded him of her.
Dave and Erica met at work and fell in love with each other. Eventually, the couple got engaged and began to plan their wedding.
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Their happiness didn’t last long, though.
Just days before their wedding, Erica was diagnosed with a rare and serious case of lymphoma.
Even though she bravely fought against the disease, she passed away in 2011 at the age of 30.
Then, just when Dave was slowly recovering from Erica’s death, something tragic happened.
In 2012, burglars broke into Dave’s home in Santa Ana, California. When Dave came back home, everything was gone – from his Xbox to expensive watches.
But the worst part of the burglary was the fact that they had stolen Erica’s camera.
This camera was one of Erica’s favorite possessions when she was alive, and Dave had been keeping it safe to remember her.
This camera had more than 300 priceless photos from their wedding, and even had images of her funeral. Dave said, “It just didn’t seem fair because after all that we went through, to lose those, it was like a punch in the gut.”
Dave was devastated.
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Then, one year later, a miracle happened.
Another home burglary took place, which initially had nothing to do with Dave.
When the detectives caught those who were responsible, they went into the burglars’ home to search for more evidence. Among other things, they found a stack of pawn shop slips.
So, the detectives decided to check the pawn shop, which allowed them to recover various stolen items.
One of the items was a Canon camera with a custom-made shoulder strap.
As one of the detectives, Detective McClaskey, turned on the device and looked through the photos, he realized that some of the images were taken during the funeral of a young women.
“As I started thumbling through it, it was apparent that it was a camera that was special,” recalled one of the Detectives involved in the investigation.
With extremely limited amount of clues from the photos, the detectives desperately tried to identify the owner of the camera.
Just when the detectives thought about giving up, they ran into a neighbor who told them that the camera might belong to Dave.
Obviously, when the detectives showed up to his front door, Dave was stunned.
“I thought it was a joke at first… I had given up all thought of recovery,” said Dave.
But, when the detectives showed him the camera, Dave immediately recognized the shoulder strap.
This camera belonged to Erica.
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When he was recalling this priceless moment, Dave said that he felt “like someone was watching out for me, just to get it back.”
And I couldn’t agree more.
I would have been completely shocked if I were in Dave’s position, too!