A Red Deer woman has been receiving cards from across the country as she gets ready to celebrate her 93rd birthday.
Helen Blondin will be turning 93 this Saturday and her daughter, Del, wanted to make this birthday as memorable as possible. Del recently published a post on Facebook, asking friends and family to send her mother a birthday card.
“My goal was to get her 93 cards for her 93rd birthday,” said Del.
“With COVID and everybody not being necessarily able to see my mom for her birthday – quite often we have family over and everything – I thought, ‘What can I do to make my mom’s birthday special?’”
Del’s sister Faye also asked her Facebook friends to send cards. Eventually their cousin, who is a postal worker, asked members of a Facebook group for fellow postal workers, with about 50,000 members, to send Helen a card as well.
Just a few days away from her birthday, Helen has already received more than 90 cards from across Canada.
“She’s been sent cards from the Maritimes, all the way to Vancouver Island and everywhere in between,” said Del.
Helen didn’t expect to receive so many cards leading up to her birthday, Del added.
“She still doesn’t know how I did or who did it. She of course suspects it’s us because it’s all of our family and kids I went to school with and kids my sister went to school with,” she said.
“About two weeks ago, she got 12 cards in one day. She phoned me and said, ‘It seems I have some extra mail.’ I said, ‘Oh, really? That’s interesting.’ Every day she’s been telling us how many cards she got. This past Friday she didn’t get any … I said, ‘Maybe the post office lady needed a day off.’”
She has received as many as 26 or 27 cards in a single day, said Del.
“She’s always looking for the sunshine, she’s always looking for the positive in life. She loves people and she loves to share her joy,” said Del.
When Helen got her second COVID-19 dose at the Westerner Park vaccination site, she wore a blue plastic tiara just to make people smile. She also gave a thank you card to the health-care workers at the vaccination site.
“She’s just like that. She’s all about spreading joy,” the daughter said.
While COVID will prevent the family from having a big birthday celebration for Helen, Del said she’s excited for them to have a picnic in City Hall Park next weekend.
sean.mcintosh@reddeeradvocate.com
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