ALL WASHED UP

My father used to walk our dogs on the beach as often as he could.
He was a quiet little man of very simple pleasures and always came home with shells and pebbles----in the end he had beds of pebbles throughout his gardens

The first storm of autumn hit our beach this week bringing all new treasures of the sea up onto the sand. The pooch and I seem to have the beach to ourselves on days like this.-----A bit of wind and rain and most people look for a warm dry place to hibernate.

I have walked that beach thousands of times and have found plenty of bottles ----some of them left there and others washed up in the storms----but until two years ago I had never found that mystical message in a bottle.

There it was, bobbing in the shallows---a Jamacian rum bottle with paper rolled up inside---there was a little water which I emptied straight out but the damp paper was stuck to the sides.
The thoughts that went though my mind as pooch and I walked home with our bottle---someone is stuck on an island and I'm going to get them off---it will be a message from some spunk on the other side of the world, looking for love---someone from a cruise ship wants to know where this has ended up.

I dried the note in the bottle in the oven and pulled it out with a wire hook----it was so sad.

I dont think the bottle had floated too far.
It was a letter from a young girl who had written it on the beach while drinking half of that rum.
It was a letter declaring her undying love to another girl.
She was declaring her love and outing herself as gay.
They had been best friends through school but she had never been game to tell her friend how she felt.
They had virtually lived for each other through school and now three years on but then her girl had found a boyfriend.
This girl was being gradually squeezed out of her girlfriends life and was alone.
She had never told her friend that she loved her as more than a friend and now her chance was gone.
She wrote about wanting to die---about not wanting to go on without her friend.

It was her love letter and this was the only address she could send it to.

I hope the sea took her sadness----I hope it took her anger---I hope it gave her peace