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Enduring pen pal friendship celebrated with surprise visit

It was a friendship that stretched thousands of kilometres and decades in time. Two women — one of them living in Regina, the other in Australia — became close as pen pals. But they never had the chance to meet each other in person.

Muriel Tataryn, from Regina, and Neita Alder, from Australia, exchanged all sorts of letters, pictures and parcels over the course of 31 years. Alder died of cancer eight years ago and Tataryn kept in touch with the family.

On Thursday, Alder's daughter made a surprise visit to Regina to celebrate the faithful bond the two correspondents made.

"You can read the letters and you can tell what was going on in mum's mind," Shirley Broderick, Alder's daughter, said.

"They talked only a few times on the phone," Renee Dobrowoski, Tataryn's daughter, said. "They would laugh and they would cry. They shared four decades together."

While the two writers tried for years to arrange an in-person visit, it never happened and Alder died in 2007.

Her daughter, however, decided to make the trip.

"I brought some of her ashes with me," Broderick said. "Because there's one thing she always wanted
to do, was to come to Canada. And I promised her years ago that if I ever got a chance to come, I would."

Tataryn was overwhelmed by the gesture.

"I could pass out," she said as she met her pen pal's daughter. "Your mom would be so proud of you."

The sharing of some ashes made the moment all the more poignant.

"I brought mom with me," Broderick said. "She's going to get to meet you. I want you to keep these ashes."

It was a moment Tataryn said she would cherish.

"That is so special," she said. "Thirty-one years we were pen pals."