Sawatsky Sign-Off: School sweethearts reconnect 35 year later

VICTORIA, B.C. –

Nathalie Meijer will never forget that night she was leaving a boring college party and happened to meet Juan Lucio, who was doing the same.

“We just started talking,” Nathalie recalls. “And it was just like so nice.”

By the time they’d stopped their impromptu walk around the grounds of Pearson College, the international students had started falling in love.

“We started a conversation that never ended,” Juan smiles.

She was 17 then. He was 18. And after three dynamic months at the school in Canada, Nathalie retuned to her home in Holland, and Juan travelled back to his in Colombia.

“We would call sometimes,” Nathalie recalls of the pre-internet period. “But it was very expensive.”

So the couple wrote countless love letters to each other over the next two years, until the distance caused them to grow apart.

“It was very hard,” Juan says of the break-up.

“I was very unhappy,” Nathalie adds.

They didn’t keep in touch, lost contact with each other, and over the following decades, both started families with other people.

But after Nathalie’s marriage ended, she found herself wondering about Juan.

“I was not looking for a new relationship,” Nathalie says. “I was really curious how he was doing.”

She found Juan on Facebook and sent a message.

“I was very excited,” Juan smiles.

You see Juan was also divorced and had been trying to reconnect with Nathalie for the past couple of years, but couldn’t find her online because her name had changed.

He called her as soon as he could after he got Nathalie’s message.

“And 30 seconds later,” Juan says. “I feel that time had not passed.”

Natalie felt the same. So they started phoning daily, writing regularly, and exchanging songs online.

It began with Natalie sending a re-imagining of Vivaldi’s “Spring,” and Juan sharing a Puerto Rican ballad about love that can never be forgotten.

“We really started to connect through music,” Juan says.

Before their soundtrack of love could grow into a Spotify playlist featuring more than 51 hours of music, they agreed to meet in person for the first time in 35 years.

“I was really, really nervous,” Nathalie says.

While Nathalie waited for Juan to arrive at the airport, a videographer from a Dutch TV show just happened to capture their reunion.

“It was so wonderful,” Nathalie recalls their emotional embrace. “It was so wonderful.”

“I felt like I was coming home,” Juan smiles.

Now Nathalie and Juan are back in B.C. for their college reunion, and celebrating three years of having a second chance at first love.

“Love works in mysterious ways,” Nathalie says. “Through time, different places and culture, love is magical.”