B.C. woman reunites with first love after fears he died in war 40 years ago

SOOKE, B.C. -

As Gabriela Melendez looks down at the black and white photo of Jamie Cuadra, she will never forget the day they first met in Nicaragua.

“He had gorgeous green eyes and dark hair,” she recalls with a smile. “And there I was with my braces and all skinny.”

She was 13. He was 15. The feeling felt unprecedented.

“Like an arrow hit both of us,” Gabriela laughs. “It was like, boom!”

While they were inseparable for months after that, the civil war in Nicaragua threatened to tear them apart.

“If you were a 14 or 15-year-old boy or girl, they will grab you and throw you in the back of a Jeep,” Gabriela says. “And then take you out to the mountains to fight.”

While Gabriela’s family made secret plans to escape the country, Jamie’s family couldn’t afford to flee.

The last day they saw each other he gave her that small black and white photo.

“And he wrote on the back,” Gabriela says, and turns the picture around. “To Gabriela, from a boy that loves her so much.”

And being forced to leave that love felt like half her body was being ripped away.

“I knew he was going to die for sure,” she says, fighting back tears.

During the following decades, Gabriela and her family moved safely to Canada and she started a successful dog grooming business, but she always felt like something was missing.

“I was never going find love again,” she says.

But then — while searching online — Gabriela happened upon a photo of an unfamiliar man with an unmistakable look in his eyes.

“It’s him,” she recalls thinking in disbelief. “You’re alive!”

It was Jamie.

After a couple years of reconnecting online, Gabriela returned to Nicaragua, and they met in person for the first time in 32 years.

“We ran towards each other with open arms, bawling and kissing,” Gabriel beams. “It was ay caramba!”

Although Jamie can’t speak English, no translation is needed when you watch him fight back tears while talking about how meaningful it felt — after enduring the trauma of war and poverty — to finally have his prayers of being reunited with his love answered.

“He says he could only think of my smile to keep him alive,” Gabriela says.

While Gabriela says his love brought her back to life.

It took a few more years — thanks to bureaucracy and the pandemic — to be together permanently in Canada.

But two weeks ago — almost 40 years to the day since they were first separated — Gabriela and Jamie reunited for good.

“Just give your heart,” Gabriela says. “And love will come back to you.”

And now husband and wife, Gabriela and Jamie couldn’t be more grateful that — against all odds — their first love turned out to be their forever love.