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March 14, 2004 |
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We Will Meet Again One Day
FOUND by Stephen Boe
in Rural Western Wisconsin
I found this note tied to a deflated balloon in rural western Wisconsin.
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Skinny October 27, 2006 |
Lovesick Bus Stop... September 29, 2005 |
Like My Dad Did July 30, 2005 |
Super Gay October 12, 2006 |
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We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework,
to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles -
anything that gives a glimpse into someone
else's life. Anything goes...
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This shouldnt have been sent in. This was very personal.
I disagree; writing it helped her feel better, and maybe reading it will make someone else feel better - this is how the world goes round
I think it's good that the note got posted...if it was tied to a balloon maybe the author sent it up with the hope that S. Monkey would find it. Since he didn't, maybe he'll come across it here.
Don't you think that S. Monkey is dead? Sadly, that was my conclusion after reading this
Im soo happy for Katie. SHE knows what love is.
I agree with Jenny. If I had written something like this and tied it to a balloon, I would be devastated to find that it had been sent in.
Tying a message to a balloon is gesture of freeing it to the world. I think posting it here is exactly what they waould have wanted.
I didn't realize before I started reading this site regularly just how bad the average American speller is. I mean, it's a glaring indictment of our educational system here, no?
Also, who the hell is "S. Monkey"? What does the S stand for?
Furthermore, Jenny should realize that the late S. Monkey is incapable of intercepting this balloon-borne missive, thus that its true purpose was to comfort Katie, the bereaved. Humans and their emotions. Irrationality strikes again.
Please Heavenly Father, don't ever let me get as judgemental and cynical as Sam the Observant. I think you missed the point on several levels.
A high-school girl near where I live was killed in a car crash and her high school honored her by letting balloons go.
I can't help but suspect that this note tied to a balloon was from this event.
High school kids are teh sort that would have nicknames like "S. Monkey".
If I wanted to keep something personal, I would never have written it down, attach it to a balloon and send it off. Once it is out of your hands it's fair game.
this is so incredibly sweet.
This clearly was written by someone who lost someone they loved and was finally able to understand that they can love again and keep the love they had - isn't that what we all want for eachother?
first find to make me cry! reminds me of the shunji iwai movie, love letter.
its such a lovely simple and imaginative gesture that Katie made, it's really sweet
for christ sakes, is nothing sacred? this was supposed to go to the magic place where balloon wishes go to die, but now it's on the internet. ok, the S. stands for SEX monkey, and he's not dead, he's just not with me. maybe this would be not as big an embarassment to me if if i hadn't signed my feaking name to it!
Isn't it kind of hypocritical to be complaining because something like this winds up on the internet when you're at this site reading other notes that have wound up here? This will inspire somebody, I know it helped me. So if any of you want to complain about things like this winding up on the internet, I suggest you stop reading them. It's not meant to embarrass anyone.
The part that really touches me is that she tied it to a balloon, so it could reach him in heaven.
Natalie, He is not dead (according to Katie), it cant reach him in heaven. Katie dont be upset, be happy that you know love and maybe he is not here with you but maybe someday he will comeback. I liked it, and im thinking bout doing that. I agree with Sara about what she said to Sam, there is no need for you to be reading this shit if you ganna miss the point of it all, you need to look at it in many levels and who the fuck cares if they spelled some shit wrong? its all about the content of the note not the spelling, so get your head out your ass and stop trying to sound smart.
I have a hard time believing the "Katie" that posted here is the real Katie. I know that a LOT of people that lose loved ones do this. I think the author would be fine with it being posted if it helped someone or brightened someone's day. I know every year some mothers that have lost a child do this. I can't really tell if it was for a child. I called my son a monkey for a long time because he loved to climb.
I can't believe some people can be so gullible as to believe the real Katie would actually find her own message on here, of all places. It's one thing to get all mushy over a posting but believing everything written in the comments is just absurd.
People need to learn to not take everything at face value. Question things. Be skeptical. It's OK. A person who blindly accepts everything is doomed to suffer disappointment and hurt. A person who questions things will be more educated, more informed and less likely to get screwed over.
Ok, my life lesson is done. Enjoy!
I lost my twin brother in the summer of 2005. On the one year mark since he passed, my family and his friends all got together and we sent balloons up.
sometimes i do the same thing, and send a letter up to him.
i know its not really going to reach him in heaven. but it still feels good, and i still feel connected with him when i do it.
i really dont mind if anyone were to find one of my letters. i am a big fan of post secret, and a big fan of this site too.
things like this help people like me, and other people who have suffered from losses.
sometimes it doesn't have to make complete sense.. it just has to feel right when you're doing it.
I have to say that the comment made by Sam the Observant shows how people have really taken insensitivity to an extreme. Regardless of whether the person who sent the balloon up believed that it was going to reach the person or not is not the point. It is for the person who is sending it and the relief that comes from letting something like that go that's important. Irrationality has nothing to do with it. Having emotions is what makes us fascinating human beings and I'd hate to think somebody as insensitive as you would be taken seriously. I'll admit that I often write letters to people who will never get them to find release and calm for the emotions that build up inside of me. I'd love for a note of mine to be found and placed here if I was guaranteed that it would help somebody.
1. In middle school, we sent balloons up to the unknown with our names and school address and something about ourselves and expected to hear back from someone. Only a few people got theirs back and those people felt lucky to know they connected with someone. This is the same.
2. No way you refer to someone as sex monkey in a letter thanking them for teaching you how to love.
3. On the off chance that katie is the Katie, Joe must have left her because she doesn't seem too happy anymore.
You all make me laugh at your gullibility. It's not that hard for someone to type a comment saying they're name is "Katie" and they live in "Wisconsin". Gasp! What a coinky-dink. If I wished I could leave a comment saying my name was "George Dubya Bush" and I lived in "The White House". Would you all reply with "Welcome Mr.President to "FoundMagazine!"". No, really. This note holds a much more deeper sentimental value than ANY of us could ever try to interpret or understand but Katie herself. So let it go. Just read it and appreciate it.
Akilah, did I miss something? How do you know his name is Joe?
Akilah: Isn't it really dangerous to send out a note with your name and school address on it? Who knows what kind of person could find that!!
Wow. Dear "Maybe I'm the REAL Katie",
You sure are bent out of shape that 2 people believed that Katie was indeed the balloon-sending Katie. I highly doubt that thinking she might be telling the truth will lead to "disappointment and hurt" and "getting screwed over." In fact, I am inclined to think that all it leads to is learning the S stands for sex and that Katie isn't happy right now. Hardly life-changing.
Thanks for the life-lesson, but I'd rather not take advice from someone so obviously bitter and untrusting.
That being said, I am a bit skeptical that the true Katie would be so embarassed. It's a beautiful letter about great love and I'm going to read it again, because now I'm bent out of shape as well. ARRG.
laurie > i think that what "maybe i'm the real katie" meant is that people are so naive that they think "katie, wisconsin" is the actual katie, they also surely believe everything they're told and THAT could lead to "disappointment and hurt"...
About the letter, I also thought S monkey was dead after reading it. And if people don't want anybody to read what they wrote well they don't tie it to a balloon. And i think the real real real katie would even appreciate that so much people are witnesses of the love she feels for S monkey, cuz when you love someone you'd like the whole world to know it...
And for me, S monkey stands for Sweet monkey...
balloons that are carelessly let go into the atmosphere choke and kill BIRDS! HEARTLESS
This has easily been the best find I have seen. It is wonderful that Katie sent this up to her love. He got it and found appreciation in it; he gave it to us to find love in it as, well.
I, too, think that S. Monkey is probably dead. The tone of the letter and the fact that they will be "together in Heaven" seems to make that pretty apparent.
And I also feel that if "Katie" didn't want this to be found by someone, she wouldn't have tied it to a balloon and sent it into the world.
Sweet letter though.
I've done this before..I sent a little note up on a balloon to my Juan telling him that I love him and I miss him.
He isn't dead, he's just living far away from me right now and I knew he probably wouldn't ever even know I wrote it, but it made me happy and I'm sure someone saw it floating or found it caught in a tree and enjoyed the mystery.
This sounds like the confession of a girl falling in love for the first time after losing her "S. Monkey." She wants him to know that even though she's found someone else, she still loves him, and is only able to do so because of her S. Monkey.
Whether or not Katie would approve of this posting, it's not any more personal than the pictures or other treasures that we value here.
This sounds like the confession of a girl falling in love for the first time after losing her "S. Monkey." She wants him to know that even though she's found someone else, she still loves him, and is only able to do so because of her S. Monkey.
Whether or not Katie would approve of this posting, it's not any more personal than the pictures or other treasures that we value here.
It is a really sweet letter, but people need to stop sending up balloons because, as Dette said, it can kill animals who choke on them. Turtles think they are jelly fish who are their food.
Yeah, good comment. I almost choked on a balloon thinking it was a jellyfish. The rubber part wasn't too bad, but the string made me gag. I started seeing flying turtles and birds dropping from the sky with little valentine-shaped mylar shreds hanging from their beaks. It was so sad. By the way, I'm not really in heaven -- I'm just stuck on some high tension power lines.
Dear S. Monkey,
a round of applause!
That's right, and stop throwing rice at weddings too please!
Smelly Monkey. It's def. Smelly Monkey. In an affectionate way.
This is a tool used bymany therapists, et al, for their clients who are dealing with grief. To me, it is obvious Smelly Monkey is dead, and Katie is learning how to get over the grief and moving on to the happier memories and allowing herself to find love again.
Isn't it funny how we all see what we need/want to see in this? It becomes our own note. Beautiful. And not having the first page leaves off enough detail so we can make it our own. Thank you Katie!
Junky, you're right, "Found" is like performance art...the show I see is probably not anything like what you see...we bring ourselves to it and interpret what we see through the filter of our own experience.
This find touched a lot of nerves in a lot of people...each one who responds with such heat is letting off a little pain and steam. Which was probably the point of the whole balloon exercise for the original sender.
Well I do happen to know someone called Monkey. And we are not in High School, but the name may have come from high school. I don't remember his first name as he's a friend of a friend, but he's not dead either. I doubt this is him...but weirder things have happened.
I, like Katie, have done this exercise. When a loved one of mine died in a car accident the majority of the family didn't get to say goodbye to him physically. To feel some sense of closure we wrote messages on balloons and let them go at his wake. I know it helped me, and i think this letter is sweet.
I love how all of the comments to the posts seem to float in time and pick up in mid conversation weather months or days have gone by. The internet is amazing.
I'm with those who think it's one of those letters to heaven. I think it's sweet that she is letting her deceased love know that she is moving on. And I think the fact that she is moving on, and letting him know (even if it's only for her sake) is wonderful.
After reading these comments, I have decided never to do so again. It makes me sad that people can warp something as simple and beautiful as this letter into something it is not.
My mom always called me monkey when I was a kid, then a boyfriend did, then a girlfriend did... It's one of those names that's always seemed to stick.
I think it's wonderful. It's like sending a letter to Santa or a message in a bottle. Who knows if "Katie" would be upset it reached the Internet, but I'm sure she is well aware that there was a possibility that it would pop and..um, land on the ground, maybe? I think it's quite inspiring.
Coincidentally, I have always wondered where lost balloons go. Rural Western Wisconsin must be full of them.
Hasn't ANYONE else seen "Message in a Bottle"? We're all here for the same reason: to make a connection in this all to disconnected world.
I too think S. Monkey is in heaven, but when I first read the letter I felt uncomfortable with Katie telling S. Monkey all about her love life and her thanking "him" for the relationships "he" inspired...then Katie telling S. Monkey that she is finally happy with Joe? Although it is not quite as romantic, I think anonymous in rural western wisconsin was right...this was sent by a girl who really needed to tell her friend how she was feeling. I lost my best friend in a car accident just before her 20th birthday, and, 11 years later, I still have days that I'd like to talk to her...even if it was by balloon.
It almost sounds to me that she is writing to her dead father-that because of his love and guidance she has found a man who treats her right...
BUT-I agree, don't do this-even though the jury is still out as to whether or not animals are hurt, why take a chance?
AND-by the way, have you heard? I read in a local newspaper that we are running out of helium...so maybe this will be a thing of the past anyway...
I sent a balloon up to my three friends that died in a car accident when they hydroplaned. I was volunteering at a bereivement camp for kids, and everyone sent a balloon. Everyone had a good cry as we watched the balloons floating up so quietly. I think that when you write down your anguish and, subsequently, your thankfulness for their influence- you expect fireworks, big noises, maybe even some classical background music. Anyway, the whole point of this is to say that watching that balloon float up to heaven so quietly, that was a reminder of the silence of my friends. That was the heartbreaking factor. After all of the kids had wiped their tears, I took them back to the camp and put on some dancing tunes. We had a wonderful night.
All I know is that my fiance' died two years ago and this is EXACTLY what I would tell him. I think it's great.
(And I agree with the other Stephanie that it's sad how people have warped it.)
i think this is just beautiful. god bless katie wherever she may be...she really does know how fortunate she was.
Anything we do for someone after they're gone is really for us, the living. Including funerals. They help those left behind deal with shock, grief, and loneliness. I think that the note is very sweet. I hope Katie is still happy in her life.
Oh, come on!
He dumped her. She'll get over it. Weren't you ever in jr. high school?
Why did so many commenters decide to negate this letter through mockery and judgement? I think it is absolutely beautiful. It shows a sort of innocence and optimism that I really wish was felt more often.
I thought this was so beautiful. I hope someone tries to get messages like this to me once i pass on....
Earlier this year, we went on a whale watching trip. I was pretty bummed by all the deflated balloons I saw floating in the water.
If you want to honor somebody, maybe you could plant a tree or name a star after them.