Wendy Ooms was working a regular shift at Shoppers Drug Mart when she spotted a box sitting on a shelf of their cash office on Nov. 3.
“It was in a corner and I needed to make room for Christmas decorations, so I dusted it off and found a lifetime of memories,” Ooms said.
Inside the box were around 100 photos, with some dating back to the ’70s.
There’s a shot of a man dressed in a Mountie uniform standing beside a horse. Another photo captures a young couple with their child sitting on the roof of an older car. Notably, a more recent shot features a senior couple together. The collection of photographs captures an entire family growing up.
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Ooms didn’t know what to do with the photos, so she reached out to Black Press Media.
“I would be devastated if these were my pictures,” Ooms said. “You can watch their family grow up in these photos.”
Black Press Media found Debra Bresser, the mother in the photos, who still lives over in Cordova Bay with her husband, Bill.
Back in 2016, Bresser came to Shoppers Drug Mart in Langford with a single mission – to photocopy some family photos for her husband’s 70th birthday celebration.
But, as fate would have it, she walked out the doors without a single photo in hand.
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“I must have got distracted and just walked away without them,” Bresser said. “I was stressed about getting everything organized for Bill’s big event. It ended up being one of those things I forgot to double-check. I never realized they were missing in the first place.”
Luckily, Ooms’s efforts have resulted in the reunion of Bresser and her cherished memories.
Bresser dropped by Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up the photos she misplaced nearly four years ago. Notably, the couple photo of Debra and Bill was taken by the late Black Press Media reporter Keri Coles.
Her daughter Nicole is now 38, her son Ryan is 41, and the couple are grandparents.
“This is my life,” Bresser said with a wide grin as she flipped through the photos. “Someone could’ve easily thrown these away, but instead I was able to get them back. I have the chance to relive these memories all over again.”
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