Brigitte knows a bit about military life, having been born on the military base in Oromocto, New Brunswick, where her father was a captain in the Canadian Armed Forces. The family later moved to Québec, where her father worked at the military college in St-Jean, and then he deployed with the casque bleu (peacekeepers) in Algeria.

“So,” she told us,“ he actually wasn’t there for a good part of my youth.”

This is how Brigitte approaches Postcards to the Front. She knows what it’s like for many Ukrainian children who have not seen fathers or mothers during the past three years. Parents, far away at the front lines, defending their homes, their families, and their way of life.

Last year, Brigitte’s father faced one of the hardest battles of his life: cancer. Sadly, he succumbed in October. During his illness, Brigitte started to think about her father’s life away from home, when deployed. She wondered, what was it like for him, as a father and as a husband? It is these thoughts that inspire Brigitte to write postcard messages of support to Ukraine’s Defenders.

“It was an easy decision to write to try to send a smile to soldiers that are away from their family for so long.”

Further, she shared, “I don’t like bullies, and I think that every human should stand with soldiers that are defending their homeland [to] let them know that they are not alone.”

As a Postcrosser, Brigitte knows what it’s like to face a blank postcard because for some years she has been sending postcards to random strangers. This “practice” with Postcrossing taught Brigitte to “treat [the message] as a conversation with a person you just met.”

Still, she initially turned to our Tips page for inspiration for her messages to Ukraine’s Defenders. “I was hoping to pick up some Ukrainian along the way, but I guess it is true that as you get older it gets more difficult to learn a new language. I have a few note cards over my desk with some [Ukrainian] phrases that I use.”

Brigitte’s cards for Defenders have been very cheerful. And lately, she started to make some of her own cards. Homemade cards add another layer of love into the Defender’s hands because they realize that the card was made ‘just for them’.

“I hope they feel reassured that someone is thinking of them and that they are not alone. It must be so mind crushing to have been there for three years!”

In February 2024, Brigitte joined the rally at Parliament Hill in Ottawa to mark the two-year anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “There were a lot of Ukrainian people, and it was very emotional. They were wearing flags and had posters that said ‘make russia pay’, among others.” (Photo courtesy of Russia Embassy Protesters / Facebook page)

Yvan Baker, MP (Etobicoke Centre) arranged for Canada’s Parliament to be lit blue and yellow on February 24, 2024 “to mark two years of the Ukrainian people fighting for their freedom and ours … Ukraine’s victory is vital to Canada’s security, so we must ensure that the Ukrainian people receive the support they need to achieve that victory. Canada will stand with the Ukrainian people until they win.”

Still, Brigitte puts her most active effort to support Ukraine into postcard-writing, including with her grandchildren. She also encourages others to write cards.

“Three of my grandkids wrote cards at my house on one of their visits. It was kind of funny to see their approach depending on their age. The 6-year-old boy drew the bad guys being killed by the good guys with guns everywhere. He’s very upset by the unfairness. His 11-year-old brother drew tanks crossed out with peace and love signs all over them. And their 8-year-old sister drew love and hugs and insisted on writing in Ukrainian.”

Postcards to the Front, Brigitte concluded, “is such a great project. A great cause and an incredible way to bring people together. Something we don’t see a lot of these days. There is hope.”

Need cards? Write to us at postcardstothefront.canada@gmail.com, and we’ll send you postcards to write to Defenders. FREE!

If you have some written cards ready for us to ship to Ukraine, here’s our address:

Postcards to the Front

P. O. Box 184

Millbrook, ON   L0A 1G0 * Canada

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