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Chapters (16)
  1. Cover
  2. Author biography
  3. Title page
  4. Copyright page
  5. Dedication page
  6. Abstract
  7. Epigraph
  8. The Letter in the Bottle
  9. Original Transcript: The Letter
  10. The Search Concludes
  11. Three Years Later
  12. Conclusion
  13. The Mother’s Story
  14. Postscript
  15. Acknowledgements
  16. Sources

This bottle, thrown with all my love, was an acceptance of how things are now, today. For love of Maurice I finally accepted the evidence, I accepted that I must let him go, that he must lie in rest, and be permitted to rise towards the heavens. It was a gesture of conscious love, a gesture of love equally towards my other sons whom I love above all else, a gesture of love also for the life I now lead.

There are still so many things to do, to give, to receive . . .

This bottle was thrown out to sea seven years ago . . . a letter dedicated to my son and to the ocean . . . a letter in which I had put all my love, all my soul, all my grief . . . a very intimate letter which came from the very depths of myself . . .

Never for one instant did I imagine that it would be found . . . and read. But if this message has been able to help parents who have lived through the same tragedy, or has drawn attention to the fragility and preciousness of life, then I am recompensed.

One last thing: these trials help us to move forward, to grow. Life is what we want it to be. Give it a chance.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank everyone who became involved in this quest.

I did not name the people whose advice I sought, because sometimes it was given in confidence, and sometimes I have disagreed with it. Nevertheless I am very grateful for the time and effort spent, and I hope they will not be offended with the conclusions I drew.

Particular thanks to Sioux Peto, for sharing the bottle that she found on the beach, and to Olivier Roussel (www.unebouteillealamer.com) for being such a wise, calm and understanding adviser and intermediary. Above all, thank you to the author of the letter, Maurice’s mother, who didn’t mean to share her letter in the bottle with anyone, but when she realized that she had, continued to do so with such generosity of spirit.

Sources

Sources

Instructions on how to create the best floating bottle are from Ed Sobey, ‘Ocean Drogues and Drifters’, Sea Frontiers, International Oceanographic Foundation, vol. 26, no. 6, November/December 1980.

On the history of letters in bottles, see www.timespub.tc/Astrolabe/Archive/ Fall2001/message.htm, especially an article by Nigel Sadler, Director of the Turks & Caicos National Museum, Grand Turk, which has a special collection of messages in bottles.

Wim Kruiswijk’s survey ran from 1980 to 1998, and was reported in the Daily Telegraph, 21 April 1999.

Queen Elizabeth’s official Uncorker of Ocean Bottles is frequently mentioned on the internet but I could find no earlier source than an issue of Reader’s Digest of the 1970s.

On beachcombing, see Lena Lencek and Gideon Bosker, The Beach: The History of Paradise on Earth, London: Secker & Warburg, 1998.