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Deborah Savely felt like a piece of her heart was missing for decades, but it was a tornado – of all things – that helped return it.

Savely's father gave her a Bible for her seventh birthday, and he passed away 10 years later, according to the Tennessean. From that point, Savely cherished it as a precious family memento until it was lost in 1974 when she was on the campus of Volunteer State Community College, the report added.

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She searched for decades, hoping to retrieve the Bible, but her quest yielded no leads. It would go undetected for 32 years.

On April 7, 2006, an F3 tornado roared through the town of Gallatin, Tennessee, as part of an outbreak that spawned at least 11 twisters. The town some 30 miles northeast of Nashville was ravaged and at least seven people died. It was the deadliest tornado to hit middle Tennessee since the Superoutbreak of April 3, 1974.

During the extensive cleanup, Betty Gibson, a former administrative assistant at Volunteer State, found the Bible, as well as many other keepsakes, News Channel 5 reports. She put them away in boxes and never revisited those items until recently.

“We’d been down in the basement of my house cleaning out,” she told News Channel 5. “There was a box of things that were left over from the tornado at Vol State in 2006. I looked through and found this Bible."

Inside the Bible was an inscription that read, "To Deborah Savely. By Mother and Daddy. June 1961."

A string of emails led Gibson to Savely, and a reunion was arranged. Forty years in the making, Savely was finally reintroduced to her precious keepsake.

“My daddy’s infused in that Bible,” Savely told the Tennessean. “Whenever I lay my hand on the page, I can feel that big old hand of his come over mine.”

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