Enapay, left, is seen with his mother Beata Noel Laforest and his two younger siblings. Laforest lost Enapay's baby album nearly a decade ago and will soon have that, and multiple home movies, back in her hands.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED / Beata Noel Laforest
January 22, 2020 - 6:00 PM
The power of social media has helped reunite a woman with a box of lost family memories.
This morning, iNFOnews.ca published a story about a box of old home movies and baby photos that were found in a Kamloops couple’s garage.
Kirsty Newbury and her boyfriend watched over the footage to try and find identifying information that would help with the return the box of lost memories.
Little did she know, in a few short hours she would be speaking with the woman whose life she spent a whole Saturday morning watching.
“It’s like putting the last few pieces of a puzzle together,” Newbury says. “It’s really awesome that they read the story and decided to reach out so quickly, and I’m so happy to be given the chance at giving their memories back.”
The videos featured a woman called Bunny, a nickname that was given to Beata Noel Laforest. Only half an hour after our story published, family members from around the province recognized her and sent the article along.
“That was so weird,” Laforest says. “My husband came running and showed me the picture. I didn’t read it at first and just saw the picture and I was like, ‘What?’”
Laforest quickly realized the photos and videos she had been missing for years had finally been found. The unearthed CDs and home movies contained memories of holidays, vacations, and photos from the first year of her son Enapay’s life.
“I didn’t have the pictures of my oldest son anymore, and those were important to me but I had no idea where or when I lost them, I just knew I didn’t have them anymore,” Laforest says.
“I have expressed sadness to a lot of people that I don't have these pictures anymore… I don’t have any pictures of my oldest son when he was born, so it was really a blessing that this has come up.”
The box of memories was unearthed in Newbury’s home on Greenfield Avenue, in a house Laforest had never even stepped foot in. When Laforest lived in Kamloops for the summer of 2011 she lived with her cousin, two streets over on Bossert Avenue.
“I wasn’t even in that house, so it’s so crazy that it’s coming back to me,” Laforest says. “I guess what happened is when they moved, they found my stuff and took it with them to their new house on Greenfield Avenue intending to let me know they had it, but of course they forgot and I didn’t even know they had it so it just got left and forgotten.”
'Bunny' Beata Noel Laforest pictured with her first son Enapay when he was a baby. This is one of the photos that was unearthed in a Kamloops couple's garage.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED / Kirsty Newbury
Laforest had planned to stay in the river city, but family issues forced her to move back to Mission, where she lives with her husband and family. She says her life has changed dramatically in the past decade and believes watching the footage will be a sign of how far she has come.
“A lot has changed. Back then it was just me and Enapay,” Laforest says.
“Since we lost that stuff, he has a sister and we also have a two-year-old little boy and I’m remarried, so life is totally different. At that time I felt so poor, going through family court and being a single mom, life was really hard for me and since then I’ve owned my own business for the last seven years and I’m just getting ready to sell it this year, so life is totally different.”
Laforest says her son Enapay was just a toddler when she lived in Kamloops and is eager to tell him the news about the home movies once he is home from school. She doesn’t remember much of what is included in the films and photos but felt a sense of nostalgia after reading the article this morning.
“I read about that Christmas and how I forgot the cookies, and I completely forgot about that. This is going to be so weird to get them back and go through it all, it has been so much time and I don’t even remember, so it’s going to be almost like a Christmas surprise for me.”
Laforest says she’ll meet with the couple who found her belongings this Saturday, as the Kamloops couple heads down to Abbotsford for an engagement party.
“It was such a coincidence, too, how they’re coming down here. It’s so weird how things happen,” Laforest says. “I’m surprised that they would try and find the people that it came from because a lot of people would just be like, ‘Well, it’s not mine,’ and just throw it in the junk. Thats what I think is the special part about the whole thing is that they cared enough to find us.”
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