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Polk Girl's Bottled Message Bubbles Up on Beach
MORGAN LAMBERT tossed a bottle over the side of a cruise ship 500 miles from where it was found on a South Florida beach. The woman who found it sent the Lakeland student a note. By JUDY A. KAHLER Published: Monday, December 1, 2008 at 12:01 a.m. When 8-year-old Morgan Lambert and her parents, Michelle and Tim, set sail this fall for a cruise to the Eastern Caribbean, fate intervened and their cruise ship was detoured because category 4 Hurricane Omar was pounding Puerto Rico. So the family instead enjoyed a trip around Cuba and on to Cancun and Cozumel, Mexico. That's when fate took another turn. On Oct. 17, when the third-grader from Valleyview Elementary School in Lakeland threw a corked Grolsch Beer bottle overboard, she had no idea how far the bottle would travel, who would find it and what effect her message in a bottle would have on the person's life. "My dad was drinking a beer. When the bottle was empty, I wrote a note," said Morgan, matter-of-factly. "It went something like, 'Hi. My name is Morgan. I am eight years old and on the cruise ship Carnival with my mother and father, Michelle and Tim. If you find this note, please write to me at this address.'" Then she drew a picture of herself with her parents, put it all in the bottle, sealed the top and with the help of her father, threw it into the ocean. "We did it at night," said Morgan. "So no one could see us." It was a simple act - one person reaching out to another in child-like trust. Morgan just knew someone would find it. And someone did. Morgan's message in a bottle bounced along the surface of the water, drifting farther and farther from the ship, and disappeared in the night like a fisherman's solitary bobber. No one knows what perils and chance encounters it faced before landing 500 miles away on a sandy beach in South Florida. It may have passed by other ocean liners. It may have been ignored by passing fishermen as it bobbed to its faraway destination. It may have weathered the more than 150-mile-per-hour winds of a hurricane. It may have glinted in the sunshine of Omar's eye. It possibly emerged on the quiet side of the storm, swept away by the overwhelming current of the Gulf Stream, before landing like a snowbird on the beaches of South Florida. Five days and 500 miles later, on Oct. 22, Rosemary Jackson, a special education teacher from Southbury, Conn., was walking along the beaches of North Palm Beach. She was visiting her mother-in-law and observing the bittersweet first anniversary of her husband's death. She was considering whether or not to put some of her husband's ashes in a bottle and set it out to sea near Turtle Bay, where the couple was married. The waves that day were enormous, driven by the relentless power of Hurricane Omar and reflecting the rise and fall of Jackson's mixed emotions. "I'd never seen the waves so huge. No one could go into the water," said the veteran teacher of 31 years. "So I did what my husband and I always did at the beach. I searched for sea glass and driftwood, collecting things to remind me of our times together when we came to Florida on vacation." That's when the sea began its age-old therapy. "I was completely unaware of how far I had walked," said Jackson. "Just losing myself in the wind and the shoreline." Jackson wandered in a daze and found herself three miles north on Juno Beach. That's when something caught her eye: a green bottle, partially submerged in the sand. "I bent down, and for a moment wondered if it was from someone's lost love, like in the movie, someone who was as heartbroken as I was," said Jackson. "Imagine my surprise when I brushed off the sand and saw a note inside, a note in a child's handwriting." Jackson opened the bottle and read Morgan's message. "It was amazing," said Jackson, who teaches fourth- and fifth-graders. "This bottle traveled 500 miles in only five days and ended up in my hands. I can't even get the post office to deliver a letter that fast." The coincidence of her finding the bottle lifted Jackson's spirits, and she returned to her classroom in Connecticut where she shared her experience with the faculty and her students. To add more synchronicity to this story, at the top of the message board in Jackson's classroom, a foreshadowing title reads, "Message in a Bottle." Jackson says that weeks ago she designed the message board for the children to leave messages. On Nov. 16, Jackson designed a homemade card and included a photo of her sunflowers blooming outside of her Danbury home. She wrote a note to Morgan and mailed it to the young optimist. It took five days to reach her in Lakeland. Morgan was thrilled. "I'm really impressed," said the girl. "How did that bottle get around Cuba and then to Juno Beach?" Morgan immediately wrote back to Jackson, and her mother says it may be the start of a long-distance relationship. "And," said Morgan with a deeper appreciation for the small world she lives in. "I can't wait to take another cruise. My mom says maybe in February." Beachcombers stay alert. This story appeared in print on page B7 of The Ledger owned by NY Times. |
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