Some of the best things in life are worth waiting for. Back in 1956, Caroline Reeves and Eddie Lamm were two teenagers in love who dated for several years. With their high school graduation looming, Caroline had her eye on Eddie’s class ring. In her eyes, it would make the perfect engagement ring to signify their unending love. Eddie, however, had other plans.
“It was an engagement ring,” Caroline recalled. “And I was the type of person that would have committed myself to him for the rest of my life with that ring.”
Eddie planned to join ROTC at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville that fall, and he hoped to join the United States Air Force after that. He loved Caroline, but settling down just wasn’t on his mind yet. Just before he left for college, he kissed Caroline goodbye without making any plans for the future, breaking her heart.
“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 remembered. “That was it.”
Eddie lived his dream of flying KC-135s for the Air Force, eventually marrying Polly Piper and having two sons. Caroline also got married and had children. She spent the past 60-plus years traveling the world, working in interior design, and writing novels. Her second husband passed away in 2001.
In 2021, Eddie’s wife Polly passed away from ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, after 60 years of marriage. He had spent the last few years as her caretaker. Alone and in his 80s, Eddie was finally able to look up the woman who he’d thought about for decades: Caroline.
“All at once something hits me,” said Eddie. “I said, ‘I’ve got to call her.'”
It took him 9 phone calls before Caroline finally picked up. They started talking and never stopped!
After three nights of long phone calls, Eddie confessed his love for Caroline. He flew from his home in California back to their hometown of Nashville, Tennessee to see her. From the second she picked him up at the airport, they knew it was love at second sight!
Caroline moved to California to be with Eddie, and he popped the question three months later. Caroline sweetly declined Eddie’s late mother’s engagement ring because she already knew which ring she wanted: the same high school class ring she’d wanted six decades ago!
Eddie is now 85 and Caroline is 82, but they “feel young again” after their reunion. They both strive to stay young at heart.
“When you’re in your 80s, you don’t have to grow old,” she said. “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.”
Caroline believes they were brought back together to “take care of each other” as they age, but she plans to be laid to rest separately from the man she loves for a beautiful reason: she wants him to be buried next to Polly, the mother of his children. Now that’s true love!
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