Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat could stop this chance meeting from happening.
After travelling more than 2,000 kilometres from its starting point in the American Midwest, a birthday balloon carrying a handwritten message has connected a Nova Scotia couple with a family in Ohio.
Late last month, Ron Carruthers of Nova Scotia was picking up trash around his cottage in Caribou River -- a community northeast of Halifax -- when he noticed a brightly-coloured pink and green object attached to a branch.
"When I got to it, I noticed that it was actually a deflated balloon and there was this card that was attached to it," Carruthers told CTV Atlantic.
The card -- a handwritten, posthumous birthday note -- was originally penned in the village of Middlefield, located just east of Cleveland, Ohio.
"I was just goose bumps from head to toe because I thought, 'what an amazing thing, for us and for them,'" Carruthers' wife, Judy, told CTV Atlantic.
The card, which starts off with the message, "See you soon? Love from all of us," was dedicated to Joyce Miller, who would have turned 60 on February 28. To mark the occasion, her family released a number of balloons in her memory that day.
"For some reason, I thought somebody was going to find it," Miller's surviving husband, Bob Miller Jr., told CTV Atlantic in a telephone interview.
When he learned where the balloon had eventually landed, Miller Jr. said he was "speechless."
"I just couldn’t believe it. I couldn't talk," he said. "I started crying right away because it was unreal."
Back in Nova Scotia, the Carruthers say they plan on sending the balloon back to Ohio, along with some photographs of their community.
"We very often say we're living in a little piece of heaven right here, so I told (Miller Jr.) that, and we had a little chuckle," Judy Carruthers said.
