Ben Coleman thought he had simply scored a nice deal. He paid $130 for a vintage video camera on eBay and couldn’t wait to see how it worked. But when he looked through the viewfinder, he discovered something no price tag could ever capture.
Inside were precious home movies left behind by a previous owner, family moments recorded between 1998 and 2006. A little girl happily eating a chocolate Easter bunny. A first birthday party. Children unwrapping presents on Christmas morning. A family vacation in Hawaii.
Ben couldn’t bear to let those memories stay lost. “It was like a very beautiful mystery that I really wanted to solve,” he said.
So he played detective. He spotted a child wearing a Utah T-shirt and listened carefully for names. Then he posted a plea on Instagram: if your name is Abby or Abigail, you’re from Utah, and you have siblings named Libby, Ellie, Parker and Hunter, “I found your entire childhood on this camera.”
It took just 24 hours for social media to track down the Darling family. “This is my family. How do I get this footage?” one of them asked. Abby got to watch her first birthday with her grandparents again, 23-year-old Hunter relived unwrapping an Indiana Jones Christmas gift, and their mom was overjoyed. “I’m very thankful. Very thankful that I have them back and that we can enjoy them still as a family,” she said.
Sometimes the kindest thing a stranger can do is take a little extra time to give someone their memories back.
Video credit: Inside Edition on YouTube