When Renée Forrestall slipped her feet into the worn pair of dingy white roller skates, it was like stepping into the past.
It had been decades since she had last roller-skated, but as she approached 60, she thought she’d have another go, get some exercise and celebrate her milestone birthday.
Forrestall, a high school art teacher in Halifax, Nova Scotia, bought a more modern pair, but the fit wasn’t quite right, so she set up a notification on Facebook Marketplace to ping her when any older skates went up for sale.
A couple days after her birthday, she got a notification: a man named James Bond was selling a pair of vintage skates for $40. He didn’t know the size – it had long since worn off – but held up a ruler measuring the boot: 10 inches.
Forrestall measured her own foot: 10 inches.
She made it down to Bond’s home two days later, sat down on the step and put the skate on. It was uncanny. The skates fit just like the skates she owned back when she was a teen.
That’s because they were her skates.
Forty years earlier, she had sold the Excalibur roller skates at a yard sale. Now, sitting on a step outside of a stranger’s house, Forestall pulled back the tongue on the skates to see her name still inscribed.
“The guy [Bond] was standing there and when I looked at him and I peeled back my name, my eyes filled up with tears because I literally had my life flash before my eyes,” Forrestall told the Guardian.
She gave Bond his asking price – $40 – tucked the skates into her car, and drove the 30 minutes home in awe of the coincidence.
She remembers her mother buying the skates for her when she was 16 or 17, at a moment in her life when she was struggling with a significant personal loss.
Back then, she used the skates to spend some time alone. Being reminded of those moments has been bittersweet, she said. “It’s very emotional.”
Coming from a big family, her father had always insisted his children write their names on their own belongings so they wouldn’t fight.
And so she wrote her name in block letters – R Forrestall – on the insides of each skate’s leather tongue using a Marks-A-Lot permanent marker.
When she found them again, the old skates were filthy and in need of some TLC. Forrestall cleaned them up brought them to a Halifax skate shop, where she bought new red wheels and matching laces.
She and her daughter put together a TikTok video showing them off, which was watched by more than a million people.
One commenter wrote: “Oh my god, the universe finally worked for once!”
Forrestall is touched by the interest in her roller skate reunification, but is most excited about practicing her skating this summer with her old pals.
“I’m not looking to get fancy. Look, if I can go forward and stay upright and not hurt myself, that’s all I want,” she said. “I’d like to be able to have some time with them again.”
