This morning on the beach I found a message in a bottle.
I was head clear, eyes eating up the ocean view, and I stumbled over a small glass jar. I thought it was garbage until I noticed the tightened lid and held it in my hand.
Inside was a folded note.
What luck! I always wanted to find one! Would it be from Japan? Alaska? Hawaii? I'm on the coast of Oregon so the entire world feels close.
Running and shouting with excitement I came up to the fire my husband was building. I unscrewed the gold-ish top and found a delicate scallop of a shell, some snips of dark hair and not one but two notes.
Jackpot. I smelled romance.
Unwrapping one folded note, I saw that it was in English, dated just a few days earlier, and most likely sent from this same beach where I stood.
As the wind played around my face, I began reading. It was not romantic. It was hard for me to read, in fact, I read a few sentences, turned it over and then stopped.
It began, "To my unborn child" and ended, "Love, Mommy".
The pain was intense, raw. A mother's grief written down across two pages. Those pages couldn't hold it all.
With a little trepidation, I unwrapped the second one. It was not signed but was also a letter and more, a declaration. I read this one carefully since I couldn't guess it's contents as quickly as the first.
It was from the father and expressed remorse and guilt, deep sorrow.
"I'm sorry for aborting you. It was my fault. I didn't want children."
It was hard to read. It wasn't any of my business but I had gone this far prying my nose into this bottle, and I couldn't stop now. It was such a sad letter. He ended it with resolve, to live a better life. To not forget his unborn baby.
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A couple of days later, the line I can't forget is from the mother's note. She wrote, "losing you as the been the worst pain I've ever felt".
Whatever your stand on abortion, there's no denying the pain involved for the survivors.