We moved into an old house where the same family had lived from about 1945 to 1998. I was cleaning the attic and happened to move some of the blown-in insulation. I saw what looked like a book. I dug around and found several things. The 1969 Sears Roebuck catalog was intact, so I set that aside and kept digging because there was more. The most interesting item was a girl's diary which she had kept from around 1952 to 1957, her teenage years. I read the whole thing, and it made me sad in a way because here was this young girl writing about her life and now she must be in her 60s and these old memories have been locked away here all this time. The girl had long since grown up and moved away, and the parents had gone into a nursing home somewhere. But I started doing a little sleuthing and found the father's obituary (he had [passed away] a few years before, unknown to me) and it listed his survivors. There were two daughters, and it listed their married names and cities of residence.

I looked up the girl whose diary it was, and sent a letter to her last known address. I told her what I had found and included pictures as proof. Within a week she called me, and not only wanted the diary, but was willing to drive out and get it. She lived about 100 miles away! She and her husband came over, and the other sister and her husband as well. It almost felt like a family homecoming. She was 61 and her sister was 56. I gave her the diary and she said she never knew what happened to it. She couldn't remember hiding it in the attic and thought maybe her mom hid it. Anyway, we gave them a tour of the house and they showed me where their rooms were, and where there used to be a staircase that I never knew about, and some other details (the house had been added onto extensively). So it was a kind of happy ending for her and the diary, and I felt better instead of just keeping it.

Saraswati river in India was considered a myth, a stuff of mythological texts and such.

No one could actually confirm its existence, but there was a millenia long speculation about why did the river feature so much in late bronze age (Vedic) Indian literature if it was not real, alongside actual and real major rivers. It was even deified as a goddess, a prospect reserved for major rivers.

Yet no one had an idea about where it was later on.

Fast forward to 19th century, Indians and the British surveying the land discovered an entire dry river valley in the middle of the desert, not far from location mentioned in ancient texts. It roughly runs behind the modern India-Pakistan border.

Many wondered where the lush and prosperous Saraswati flood plain mentioned in Vedic texts went, and why did the river dry up.

The most common theory today is that the river, while real, suffered drastic effects in the massive climate change of late 6th century AD, and lost its course. The mention of it in imperial texts disappears by the next century. Parts of the river lingered around until 9th century but increasing desertification eventually destroyed it completely. And the river passed from memory.

It remains like that today, just a faintly recognizable river valley in the middle of the desert.