Message In A Bottle: Author Finds A Frenchwoman's Love Letter To Her Dead Son

The Guardian:

When a Frenchwoman wrote a love letter to her dead son, put it in a bottle and threw it into the sea, she never dreamed anyone would read it. But author Karen Liebreich did and, moved by the anonymous mother's grief, set out to find her

Read the whole story: The Guardian

Comments

[GERTRUDE GERTIE SCHOLL]

05:45 PM on 08/15/2010

A mothers love.

“Our memories are the only paradise from which we can never be expelled.”

~JP. Ritcher

[aristippe]

05:36 PM on 08/15/2010

Forgive me but i think elegy not love letter is a better descriptio­n.

[PlayTOE]

04:08 PM on 08/15/2010

It is better to be heard, than not to be heard.
When reading "message in a bottle" makes parents cherish their children more, then a bottle's message ... and the thoughts of two mothers ... are heard.

[Sir Guy Grand]

04:04 PM on 08/15/2010

My reaction to this sad story is that the wrong person found that bottle. Instead of honoring the mother's grief and keeping the letter to herself, the author chose to exploit it in sensationa­l book form. Now that mother's private message of love to her son is a best-selli­ng book in two languages and the mother has been "outed." The author has done absolutely no-one any good here.

[Harvee Wallbanger]

01:46 PM on 08/15/2010

This is a moving story. I don't know how I would handle losing one of my children. This mother was consumed by it for at least 21 years. The letter was an attempt at closure. And probably just an attempt.

[topkatnc]

08:15 PM on 08/14/2010

Strange story .... I guess if I had thrown a bottle with a note in it .. in the ocean ... I guess I would want it to stay there .... but I guess if someone found it ... then wrote a book about it ... well ... that would have been kinda cool ..... I can't believe I just typed this ...... I'm moving on .. see ya ..

[no exit]

06:47 PM on 08/14/2010

Whether or not a grieving mother meant or even cared if the bottle was found, I consider it a gross violation of her privacy to have printed it for the whole world to see w/o first finding the woman and getting her permission­. This "author's" excuse for doing so is completely self-servi­ng.

[Sir Guy Grand]

04:05 PM on 08/15/2010

Agreed.

[Formeralaskangal]

04:46 PM on 08/15/2010

I thought the same thing. My friend pointed out that perhaps one good thing came of writing the book, and that would be the possibilit­y of helping another parent through their grief by reading how this woman finally moved on after all those years. I'm not completely convinced, but at least I hope that now that it is out there, it does some good.