100-year-old receives birthday surprise from her garbage men on milestone birthday

Not everyone is blessed to live long enough to celebrate their 100th birthday. So when their sweet lady from the Midlands, U.K. reached the hundredth year of her life, a special friend was waiting to surprise her at her doorstep with a birthday cake. The ITV News captured the beautiful story of Dorothy May Ballard and her wholesome friendship with the local garbage collector, Ben Bird, in 2019. Ballard, who is also known as Mercy in her neighborhood, had been friends with Bird for over 8 years at that point. Bird's profession allowed him to strike up conversations with the people in the neighborhood where he worked and the closest he had gotten to was Ballard.

Bird showed up every Thursday for his duty and would have a little chat with Ballard each time he passed by her house. "Where's my favorite lady?" he would ask whenever he visited her. Walking with the help of a stick, Ballard would appear on the patio to greet Bird. "I empty the bin, come back up, and then we have 10 minutes, don't we, just to talk," Bird told the news channel. At one point in their conversation, Ballard had told Bird how old she was and he made a promise to bring her a cake on her 100th birthday.

"She told me her 100th birthday was coming up, so I thought I would keep my promise and surprise her as I said a few years ago. She told me she was in her late 90s, and I was like, 'Whoa, we will celebrate your 100 years on earth together,'" Bird recalled. He further mentioned how he had visited a local bakery to purchase a cute pink-colored cake for Ballard and decorated it with candles to make her feel like a young girl again. So when Ballard opened her front door on the morning of her 100th birthday, she was stunned to see Bird standing outside with some of his colleagues. He kept his promise to the elderly woman as the small gathering sang her happy birthday song. 

The pleasant surprise made Ballard emotional as she broke down in tears. One of Bird's colleagues recorded the heartfelt moment, which was later shared with ITV News. The brief footage featured Bird asking Ballard to blow out the candles and make a wish on her birthday. Bird joked that she should wish to live up to age 105, to which Ballard smiled and replied, "Shut up." "There ain't many young men that take interest in an old woman. He's such a lovely lad," Ballard humored to ITV News during an interview.

The centenarian was also delighted to receive a birthday card from Queen Elizabeth (she died in 2022) as in the UK following the norm where every British citizen gets a card from the royal family when they reach the age of 100. "He literally made my day. I wasn't expecting any of that. When he made this promise a couple of years ago, I thought he would forget about it within just a few hours as he is a young man full of life. But I couldn't believe it when he showed up with the cake. It was wonderful," Ballard admitted. According to Kidderminster Shuttle Memorial, Ballard passed away peacefully on November 13, 2020, at the age of 101.