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Gary Bentley and his wife of nearly 34 years, Gwen, of Killen, have in recent days both posted the same photo to their Facebook profiles.

"We were going through some things not long ago, and came across it," Gary said. "It's amazing that that picture has survived because it went through three foster homes" and a house fire.

In the photo, a 10-year-old boy stands next to a smiling brown-haired young nurse. On the boy's chest, there's a giant stitched scar, like a zipper running from the bottom of his throat to the lower tip of his sternum.

"If you look closely at that little boy in the picture, you can see the despair in his face," Gwen said. "That little boy had literally been beaten down by that point in life and he was smart enough to know it."

The sullen-faced boy in the photo is Gary Bentley. In 1973, he had open-heart surgery at UAB Hospital to repair a hole in his left ventricle. Gary knew about the hole, but it was supposed to have sealed as he got older. When he and his six siblings were taken by the state from their abusive, alcoholic father in Florence, and put into foster homes, doctors discovered the hole was still there.

"They couldn't believe that I had survived that long," Bentley told AL.com.

He had other problems, too. He was born with a cord wrapped around his esophagus that doctors feared would choke him as he grew older. (Years later, as an adult, Gary would even find out he was born with a horseshoe kidney, Gwen says.) The family was poor, too, Gwen said.

"When most little boys carried bubble gum or a pocket knife, Gary, even as a preschooler, carried a magnet," Gwen said. "A magnet could tell him if a piece of metal was copper, aluminum, or steel. He and his siblings knew the current value of each for scrap prices."

But it's the other person in the photo they're concerned with. Gary doesn't remember the name of the nurse - "I thought it was Kathy, but I don't... I was really small at the time, and I had a lot coming at me," Gary said - but he remembers her, and he wants to find her. As his wife says, the nurse was the first person to ever be kind to him.

"He remembers clearly, crying when he was moved off the floor where this nurse was working because he was so touched that someone... finally... was nice to him," Gwen said. "I don't know if this nurse was aware of his background, but I am certain she has no idea how much she touched his life and how much he needed it at that time. "

"For some reason, she was really sweet to me, and I looked forward to her coming in every day," Gary says. She would bring him small gifts and treats, Bentley said. She paid him the kind of attention that a sickly kid with 6 brothers and sisters had never gotten, at a time when he needed it the most. "I've always wondered what happened to her, and wondered why she was so nice to me."

"I guess she just saw that I needed a friend," Gary said.

"She took special interest in me for some reason," he said. "When they moved me off her floor, man, I cried." He said he tried to go see her while she was still in the hospital, but he wasn't allowed.

Gary Bentley - who now runs a successful turtle farm in Killen and bills himself as the Alabama Turtle Farmer - wants to find the nurse and reconnect.

"I would just like to tell her thank you," Gary says. "Your act of kindness many years ago - it was appreciated. I haven't forgot it, and I never will forget."

The woman wears a name tag, but Gwen says even looking at the original, the nametag is too blurry to make out. They know she was a nurse at UAB in 1973 and tended to people recovering from major surgeries, but other than that, they know very little.

UPDATE: Gary and Gwen believe they have found Kathy. She is still a nurse, and works on a cardiac unit, according to her daughter (who posted below in the comments as well). We'll keep you updated.

SECOND UPDATE: Here's the story of Gary and Kathy's reunion Sunday.