When Shanelle Pucci learned her grandmother wasn’t healthy enough to attend her wedding, the family responded by orchestrating an unforgettable moment that has since gone viral on social media.
The touching video from October captures Pucci, dressed in her wedding gown, walking down the stairs of her family home for a grand reveal that reduced her late mémère to tears.
“There was not a dry eye in that room,” Pucci, from Sault Ste. Marie, said.
Shortly after her grandmother Pierrette Mathieu passed away on Nov. 26, Pucci uploaded the “core memory” to Facebook so friends and family could see it.
But in a surprise turn, that special moment has been viewed more than 1.2 million times online.
“I was not expecting that,” Pucci said. “I knew it was a tearjerker, but because it was my lived experience and emotional to me, I wasn’t sure how it’d be received. But it really hit a lot of people.”
Pucci told SooToday she had a unique childhood as her grandparents Pierrette and Adelard moved into her parents’ home in 2000. Her pépère passed away eight years later, while her mémère lived out her final 23 years with Pucci’s parents.
“They raised my sister and I just as much; we were with them every single day,” she said. “I would consider them my second parents for sure. I’m so grateful for that. We had such a great relationship.”
When her grandmother was diagnosed with COPD five years ago, Pucci says her mobility became significantly reduced. To help her stay connected with loved ones, she got her set up on social media.
“She just absolutely fell in love with this whole new world,” Pucci recalled. “We always used to call her the ‘Facebook Queen.’ She was on her iPad from the moment she woke up to when she went to sleep. She’d like, comment, and share everything.”
“It’s so crazy to see she’s finally the star of one of those videos that she most likely would have liked or commented on,” she added.
Pucci and her new husband Enrico celebrated their wedding day at Giovanni’s with 150 of their closest family members and friends this past October. Although the family’s matriarch couldn’t attend in-person, she was still able to enjoy the day through FaceTime.
“We were supposed to get married this New Year’s Eve, but plans miraculously changed,” Pucci said. “We decided to push it to Thanksgiving weekend, and I’m so thankful for that. She was able to be around for it before she passed a month and a half after that.”
As her video continues to receive thousands of additional views every day, Pucci feels grateful that her grandmother’s compassion and warmth is being shared around the world.
“I’m so happy that all these people get to see the tiniest glimpse of the love this woman had for her family,” she said. “You can see in that video how much we meant to her, and so many people got to see that. It’s such a great tribute to her and the love she had for us.”
“She’s our world,” she added. “We knew if one person in our lives was going to appreciate what we did, it was her. Everything we did was because of her.”
