Georgia woman remembers husband who died on 9/11 through love notes: "I still love him as much"

A metro Atlanta woman is remembering her husband and his sweet gestures after he was killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks 25 years ago.

For years after that day, Barbara Spence continued to find love notes from her husband, Maynard Spence, in hiding spots.

Now, the Douglasville woman keeps those love notes, birthday cards, and paper flowers tucked away in a box.

"He used to make me paper flowers, paper roses from napkins. I've got a whole bunch of them down there," Barbara Spence said.

The love notes didn't need a special occasion or a reason to celebrate; it's just something he always did.

"Maynard thought he was the luckiest man in the world, and I just think he never wanted me to forget that and always wanted to let me know how loved I was," she said.

The couple exchanged love notes over 10 and a half years before tragedy changed their lives forever.

Maynard Spence was in New York for work meetings on Sept. 11. He was on the 100th floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower when the first plane hit.

"I spent hours and hours and hours not understanding what was going on, you know, not getting a grasp on things, and then, of course, the second plane hit, and then the towers started going down, but you still don't go to that awful place," Barbara Spence said.

She held onto hope that she would either hear from Maynard or hear something about him.

"I guess I knew, you know, maybe after two weeks you just, you know," she said. "He would have showed up or something would have happened. But it wasn't until April the following year that they found a part of him in the rubble, and so that was very definitive."

Not long after Sept. 11, Barbara found one of Maynard's love notes hidden in a cookbook next to a cookie recipe he loved.

"I pulled out the cookbook, and the note was in there," she recalled. "I just bawled my eyes out."

Barbara Spence recently looked through the pile of memories for the first time in years.  

"I'd forgotten, actually, I had just forgotten how much there was of everything," she said. "All these cards."

She said Maynard was her soulmate.

"I feel like I still love him as much as I did 25 years ago," she said. "It wasn't too long before 9/11; I remember telling him I felt like I fell more and more in love with him as time passed."

Every note, every letter, and every card is a reminder of Maynard's love for Barbara 25 years later.