Widower had accidentally spent a dollar bill signed by wife. Decades later, he found it while having lunch at Subway

Gestures from loved ones mean everything, even if it is a simple signature or initials on a piece of paper. These things hold far more value when the person is no longer with us. 86-year-old Peter Bilello and his wife, Grace, had signed a $1 bill each, years ago, as reported by WTNH News. This dollar bill meant everything to Peter, especially after his wife passed away. While the elderly man planned to keep it with him all his life, he accidentally spent it and only realized it when it was too late. To his fate, he stumbled upon it years later, and it was a reunion of a kind. 

Recalling the story of how they met, Peter said that it happened by chance. “My mother asked me, ‘Say, why don’t you get married? What are you waiting for?’” he recalled. She then suggested a woman named Grace and asked her son to meet and see whether he liked her. The duo met and grew fond of each other, and decided to get married. “She had to like me to get married in 40 days,” Peter joked. Unfortunately, Grace passed away after a battle with breast cancer, 5 months after the duo celebrated their 50th anniversary. 

Remembering the bill he lost, which was a fond memory he had with her, the elderly man said the idea just happened to come to mind at the time. He said, “I signed one and she signed the other one, and I said, ‘This dollar is going to be in my wallet forever.’” Unfortunately, months before Grace passed away, he spent it one day and it was too late before he realized, per ABC 7. “I feel so mad, I felt sorry and said, ‘We’re never going to see those two dollars back again,’” he poignantly noted. His hope must have been shattered, but things were not over for him just yet. 

Seven months after his wife died, when Peter took his granddaughter to Subway, the cashier handed him three dollars back as change. When he looked at the first one, he saw something written on it. “Grace B.” it read. “When I saw the first one, it was my wife’s dollar,” Peter gladly remarked, showing the precious note, now wrapped in plastic. He exclaimed to his granddaughter in relief, “Oh my God, Ashley, look at Nona’s dollar, back again five years later.” Having found his prized possession, he said his broken heart had been mended and his smile revealed it all.

Peter was determined to look after that dollar more than ever, but he credited his late wife for its discovery. “I never thought I was going to get that dollar back again, never. The first thing I said was, ‘Grace, she did this to make me happy and her to be happy too,’” he said. As he kept visiting his wife’s grave, he had newfound joy blended with nostalgic love, all in that one note. “I believe (in miracles) too. Every time I go over there, I cry, I say, ‘Grace, you did this,’” he remarked.