FARGO, N.D. — It played out like a made-for-Hollywood moment. So, how appropriate it took place beneath a movie marquee.
“Laughing, crying, squealing with delight,” is how Sue Hein describes the moment she learned she was going to be a grandmother. Based on a video of the reveal, Sue undersold it.
“I would describe it as just pure joy,” Kristina Landin, Sue’s daughter, says.
Kristina and her husband Michael planned the surprise down to the smallest detail.
The native Minnesotans, transplanted in Fargo, invited Sue, who lives in Litchfield, Minnesota, for the weekend.
Kristina paid $50 to rent the marquee at the Fargo Theatre, on which she had posted in red letters, “SURPRISE YOU ARE GOING TO BE A GRANDMA. LOVE M AND K.”
Then, she enlisted three friends to pose as a video crew doing a story on Mother’s Day, in order to capture the event on camera.
“We had to make sure we walked from the right direction so she couldn't see the sign walking up to it,” Michael says.
After some routine questions, the pretend video crew asked Sue to turn and read the marquee.
Shrieks, hugs and tears followed. Some tears were happy, others sad. Sue’s husband, and Kristina’s father, Gary Hein, had died of cancer just a few months earlier
Kristina says the surprise was the happiest she’s seen her mom in a long time.
Sue’s granddaughter, Annika, arrived last fall.
“I think we’re going to have a lot of fun,” Sue says.
In this family, count on it.
MORE LAND OF 10,000 STORIES: