"I was listening to the radio one morning last week when I heard about someone who had found a letter in a bottle drifting in the sea. The date on the letter was 63 years earlier. The radio presenter never told us the message which the bottle contained, so over breakfast this morning, I composed one it might have been. Then, shortly after, I saw the enclosed image somewhere on Facebook and felt that my composed words matched word to imagined thought of the girl looking out.
'Someday soon when I am grown up, I'll do what I want to do and go where I want to go. I know that it won't always be easy, but it will be easier than living here since you died last year, Mum.
The trouble with mums is that they hold our hands for moments in our childhood, but capture our hearts for life. I can still feel your arms around me, Mum, whenever I cry. Your comforting hug seemed to last a lifetime before you finally let go. Only you possessed that magic rub to make my bruised knee stop hurting when I fell on the road. It was you who never doubted my worth of who I'd one day be. Only you believed I could go farther than I'd dare let myself go.
They say that all children must someday loses their innocence, but I know that to be a lie. We don't lose it; it is taken away through the tragic circumstances of one's life like you were, Mum! Once, when I was happier, I never thought about the future and it seemed so far away. My innocence of thought and ignorance of real hurt protected me and left me free to enjoy myself like no adult can. I felt forever safe knowing that my mum was there in the background. Then when you died, Mum, I started to fret about the future without you and the uncertainty of my life. That was the day I left my childhood behind and became a grown up person in a young girl's body overnight.
When I marry and have my first child, Mum, that's when I'll miss you most. I'll miss your absence at my wedding, at my child's birth, at its Christening and at all the birthday parties and school concerts Grandma won't be there. I know now there will be empty moments in my future life, moments which no words will ever fill. I know there will be times that my aching heart will know no end. Every birthday anniversary of you that comes around, every Christmas, every family celebration will remind me that you are no longer here. Those will be the times it dawns on me anew that I'll never hug my mum again.
Today when I awoke and saw the calendar with the remembrance date of your death, I cried. But when I came out here and started to think once more of the happier times we spent together, I knew deep down that you would never die and leave me, Mum. People only die when we forget them and I'll never forget you, Mum. I love you, Mum and I miss you oh so much.Thank you for always having been my Mum'" William Forde: April 24th, 2016.