A Toronto woman received a card from a secret admirer every Valentine’s Day for 60 years. Then a mysterious stranger showed up at her funeral

As Meryl told the Star back in 1986, “I thought he might be a pilot or a sailor because of the far-flung postmarks like Japan, New Zealand, South Africa and all over Europe. The only Canadian one came from Whitehorse.”

Meryl’s “Secret Pal” (as the cards were often signed) only missed one year — 1968 — but later sent a postcard from Paris to apologize and explain about the illness that had prevented him from sending the annual valentine.

Meryl’s husband, Alex, was never bothered by her admirer; in fact, it made perfect sense to him that others appreciated her as much as he did. “I’ve got the finest wife a man could ever have,” he said.

As time went by and Meryl’s anonymous Romeo aged, he acknowledged in one of the cards that there would come a time when he would only be able to communicate “from another medium.” However, he assured her she “would always be in [his] heart.”

In the summer of 1988, Meryl passed away peacefully at her home in Scarborough, at the age of 76, having received a total of 60 valentines from her secret admirer over her lifetime.

Her daughter Jeanette was too affected by grief to pay much attention to the crowd at the funeral, but a close friend informed her that an unfamiliar man had been sitting at the back of the church and had followed the procession at a respectful distance to the gravesite.

No card arrived at Meryl’s home that February. Her pal had said his last goodbye.