The bond of friendship knows no bounds. Carol DeVries, who just celebrated her 60th birthday, has had a friendship for more than 40 years with someone she has never met on the other side of the world... also named Carol.

Their simple friendship started when DeVries decided to fill out a questionnaire her sister brought home from school to be matched with a pen pal. Being from small town Coronach, Sask., DeVries picked the farthest place she could think of: Australia. 

Pen pals were matched based on similar interests, but to DeVries' surprise, they shared much more than that. 

"Carol and I turned out to be a wonderful match. Besides having the same name, her birthday is 10 days after mine. She has/had 2 sisters and a brother same as I."

At the time they started corresponding via snail mail, DeVries was working with adults and later switched to home care. Her pen pal, Carol, was working with special needs children and later tried to become an EMT. 

"We would write letters and cards back and forth for nearly 20 years until we decided to try email. She didn’t have a computer at the time and that’s when I started writing to her sister Mary who became our go between for a while."

"Carol and I aren’t into FaceTime or Skype. In fact, when we accidentally did do a FaceTime we were both shaking and crying. We did separate videos [for our] 60th birthday greetings."

DeVries added that they follow each other on Facebook to share photos and family happenings.

"We’ve become family and celebrate marriages and births and grieve over family we have lost. I don’t know why we’ve maintained this relationship for so long except that we are so connected. We have the same quirks and can finish each other’s sentences."

Hear the conversation DeVries has with Sun 102 Morning Show Host Clare Wanner below.