”This is not a good-bye, my darling, this is a
thank-you. Thank you for coming into my life and giving me joy, thank you for
loving me and receiving my love in return. Thank you for the memories I will
cherish forever. But most of all, thank you for showing me that there will come
a time when I can eventually let you go.”
Garret wrote as a means of letting out his feelings of loss of his wife, Catherine. When the grief overwhelmed him and threatened to choke him, he wrote out his feelings, rolled it nicely and put it into a bottle. He then threw it out into the vast ocean as he had no address to send to. For over 3 years, he did that whenever he could not control his sense of deep loss. It was an outlet for him. What he never expected was the bottles were found and the letters read, kept and published.
Theresa, a single mother with a twelve year old son, found one such bottle during her walks on the beach while on holiday. She picked it up and discovered the letter. She read it and had a good cry as the letter was beautifully written from the depths of the writer's heart.
“The letter obviously came from the heart. And to
think that a man wrote it! In all her years, she had never received a letter
even close to that ......... What would such a man be like? she wondered. Would
he be as caring in person as the letter seemed to imply?”
“Immediately after reading it, she had read it
again, then a third time. What would it be like, she mused, to have someone
love her that way?”
Being a journalist, she published the letter as it had human interest. Thus, she received a call about another letter of the same line. And a third letter from another place. Her curiosity was piqued and she began her journey of tracking down the writer if just to know what he was like. He seemed like a man who loved wholeheartedly. Theresa, bruised from a divorce due to infidelity and dishonesty, wondered if such a man still existed.
They met and without planning it, they fell in deeply love like two lost souls brought together. Being in a long distance love affair was trying as it was. But at the end of the day, Garret had to confront his own demons as he could not let Catherine go. They broke up reluctantly as Theresa could not compete with a shadow deeply embedded in his mind and heart. Garret dreamt of Catherine as he tried to face his own guilt ....
“Upon hearing my answer, she smiled at me with
patient amusement, the way she used to before she died. “Oh, Garrett,” she
finally said as she gently touched my face, “who do you think it was that
brought the bottle to her?”
He finally wrote a final letter of goodbye to Catherine and another letter to Theresa asking for a second chance. He went out to sail to send Catherine's bottle but he never came returned. Theresa found out his death through Jeb, Garret's father. She finally found out the reason why he went out to sea when he knew that a storm was brewing through the letter that was addressed to her 2 weeks after his death. Garret was a professional sailor as he was involved with diving business. It took a year for Theresa to gather up herself and finally she wrote a letter thanking Garret for teaching her to love again. She too, let the bottle out into the sea .....
"After reading the letter for the last time, Theresa rolled it up and sealed it in the bottle. She turned it over a few times, knowing that her journey had come full circle. Finally, when she knew she could wait no longer, she threw it out as far as she could.
It was then that a strong wind picked up and the fog began to part. Theresa stood in silence and stared at the bottle as it began to float out to sea. And even though she knew it was impossible, she imagined that the bottle would never drift ashore. It would travel the world forever, drifting by faraway places she herself would never see.
When the bottle vanished from sight a few minutes later, she started back to the car. Walking in silence in the rain, Theresa smiled softly. She didn’t know when or where or if it would ever turn up, but it didn’t really matter. Somehow she knew that Garrett would get the message."
It is a beautiful story. I hate sad endings as it makes me cry and cry......
I, too, write out my feelings of frustrations, uncertainties, dissatisfaction, unhappiness and loneliness but I do not send them out to sea in a bottle. I write them and save them in the draft of my blog and e-mail. By now I have lots of it ..... it is what is called "self-help" therapy ... :-}}
These are old publications of Nicholas Sparks novels. I have always wanted to read them but never got the time and mood. Hmm ... back to the question ... are we able to love deeply with our whole heart and soul devoted to only one person ?????
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