Theresa found a bottle washed-up on seashore by chance when she was on vacation and trying to cure the hurt coming from the termination of her marriage. There was a letter in the bottle, which showed a man’s everlasting love to his wife. She was touched and intrigued by the letter and started the journey to find out the man named Garrett and the hidden story. Here came the story of “message in a bottle”.

Garrett’s wife Catherine was killed by a careless driver. For many years, Garrett had been tormented by the memories of both the happiness of being with her and the sorrows of losing her. Whenever he yearned for her, he wrote her a letter, sealed it in a bottle and “delivered to her” by the water stream. His pleasure in life had gone with her and his heart was totally dead until Theresa emerged. As if guided by a mysterious power for a purpose, Garrett and Theresa ended up to be in love with each other. However, his devoted love to his wife and guilty feeling of accepting new emotion hindered him from moving forward. Especially when he accidentally found the letters he wrote to Catherine in Theresa’s bedroom, he was shocked and thought she manipulated his emotions intentionally.  However, in retrospection of the whole story of knowing her, he realized he did love her and decided to ask for forgiveness. Meanwhile, he also made up his mind to let his old life go eventually. He believed that it was Catherine who sent Theresa to him for the rest of his life. He wrote a final letter to Catherine and managed to drop the bottle in the sea far away from the seashore in case the water stream would wash it up again. Unfortunately, he met a terrible storm and never went back.

Not surprisingly, I was touched by the love between Garrett and Catherine, and between Garrett and Theresa as well. Nevertheless, what impressed me most was that people should learn let go, which is hard, yet not impossible. Letting go is one of the most important lessons for everyone to learn in his/her whole life. People are not able to control everything that happens to them. We all have ups and downs in our life. Losing an intimate friend or lover, for instance, or working under an unrespectable boss, not to mention trying one’s best to gain something desired in vain. Sometimes people become stressed out and entangled in frustration by fighting with the dark sides painfully, and even lose confidence and hope for the future life. These sufferings will gather and accumulate in one’s mind, and turn into a bomb-like trigger to start another vicious circle. What good is it to carry on this burden in future life? So finding an effective way to release the annoyance and let it go actively is essential, e.g. speaking it out to someone you trust is one of the ways. The bottom line is to count on time, which is able to erase every detail and only the outline remains. Whenever it comes, one will feel relief emotionally and mentally.

What if Garrett let go of his old love smoothly once he met Theresa? They might have lived happily ever after.