
A man’s thoughtful gesture to gift his wife the school yearbooks she never got to enjoy all those years ago has gone viral, leaving many realizing that maybe romance isn’t dead after all.
Pearl Miles, 29, loved going through her husband’s school yearbooks and reading through the personal messages written by his classmates.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t afford to purchase any of her own yearbooks at the time, so going through those belonging to her husband, Ryan Miles, also 29, was all she had.
“I used to watch kids on the last week of school, swapping and signing yearbooks, wishing I had my own,” Pearl, who resides in Provo, Utah, told Newsweek.
After noticing how much his wife loved looking through all his high school memorabilia, Ryan asked if he could see her yearbook too. She explained why she didn’t own any of them, and noticed just how shocked and saddened he appeared.

@pearlaiono01 / TikTok
Much to Pearl’s surprise, the saga didn’t end there.
In April of this year, she walked downstairs to find a gift waiting for her on the coffee table and her husband looking very pleased with himself.
“I opened it up and it was my high school yearbooks. These were over 12 years old mind you, so I was shocked to say the least. I looked at him stunned and I started crying, asking how he did this,” Pearl said.
She continued: “I felt seen, and it healed something in me that day. I never complained or cried about not having a yearbook, but my husband just knew that young Pearl yearned for those memories.”
To top it all off, Ryan even signed one of the yearbooks with a personal, handwritten message.
It was so much fun for the couple to go through the yearbooks and relive that nostalgia from her childhood growing up in Newark, California. Pearl said it was “really special” to see all those familiar faces from her high school days, and she often goes through the yearbooks in her spare time.
Pearl shared her husband’s sweet gesture in a TikTok post (@pearlaiono01), explaining that he called her old high school, tracked down the yearbooks and paid for them to be delivered to their home. Alongside the picture of herself reading the yearbooks, Pearl wrote in the caption that her husband is “the greatest gift of my life.”
The post has since gone viral, leading to more than 2.4 million views and over 626,000 likes on TikTok at the time of writing.
The online reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, as social media users applauded Ryan’s selfless and kind gesture that he knew would mean the world to his wife. Pearl has loved reading through the TikTok messages and comments from people championing the man she calls her husband.
“My husband is a very humble guy, and I was happy to see so many people see how truly special and kind he is,” Pearl told Newsweek. “I just want every young girl and woman to know that there are men out there who are ready to love all the parts of you that you may not love. Real love is healing, and kind and every good woman deserves that.”
The internet can’t get enough of Ryan’s gesture, leading to over 5,300 comments on the viral post so far.
One comment reads: “I mean this is the definition of you won.”
Another TikTok user wrote: “This warmed my heart and made me believe in love again.”
Another person added: “Damn woman. You got the PREMIUM package with that man!”
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