Most letters from the sea are written to someone waiting at home. This one was written because no one was. I'm Captain Harlow, and this is Letters from the Sea. In the autumn of 1887, the merchant ship Fairwind disappeared during a storm with 23 men aboard. Nearly two months later, a passing vessel discovered one survivor living alone on a small island far from the shipping lanes. His name was Owen Lee. Owen lived for another 38 years. After his death, a sealed letter was discovered at the bottom of his sea chest. Across the front, in faded handwriting, he had written only four words: To whoever finds this. To whoever finds this, I hope you will forgive a stranger for writing to you as though we know one another. But if you are reading these words, then for this one moment, you are the closest thing I have to company. This is my 53rd night on the island. At least I believe it is the 53rd. I marked the first 37 on a piece of driftwood. But the tide carried it away while I was sleeping. Since then, I have counted the sunsets. I may have missed one. A man alone begins to discover how many things he once trusted other people to remember for him. My name is Owen Lee. I served as an ordinary deckhand aboard the Fairwind. I do not know where the ship rests now. The storm broke her apart before dawn, and by the time the sun rose, there was nothing left above the water but splintered wood, a barrel, and me. There were twenty-three of us aboard when we sailed. I have not seen another living soul since the wreck. I suppose a letter like this should be addressed to someone, a wife, perhaps, or a mother, or a brother, or a child. But I have none of those. My mother died when I was six years old, and I never knew my father. After that, I belonged mostly to whichever person needed a boy strong enough to carry something. I swept floors, unloaded wagons, cleaned fish, and eventually found work along the docks. The sea did not ask where I come from. It only asked whether I could work, so I stayed with it. Whenever we prepared for a long voyage, I watched the other men write letters home. They complained about it, of course. Men often complain about the very things they would be lost without. They wrote to their wives who worried, mothers who prayed, and children who expected presents from distant ports. I usually pretended to mend a shirt or check my boots until they had finished. No one ever noticed that I had no letter to write. The hunger here is difficult, and the nights are worse, but neither of those is the hardest part. The hardest part is knowing that no one knows that I am missing. Somewhere, the families of the Fairwind are waiting for news. Doors are opening whenever footsteps come down the road. Wives are watching the harbor, and children are asking when their fathers will return. But there is no window with a lamp burning for me. No chair has been left empty, and no one wakes during the night wondering whether Owen Lee is cold. I do not write that so you will pity me. I have had enough time alone to understand that a life should not be judged only by who waits for it at the end. I have known kindness. A baker once gave me a warm loaf because he saw me staring through his window on a winter morning. An old sailor taught me my first proper knot and pretended not to notice when it took me twenty tries. A woman who ran a boarding house always left a plate covered near the stove when she knew that our ship would return late. None of them belonged to me, and I did not belong to them. But for a few minutes, or an evening, or sometimes an entire season, I was not alone, and perhaps that counts for more than I once believed. When a man has no family, he becomes skilled at leaving places before anyone can ask him to stay. I have done that all my life. I told myself I preferred it. It is easier to claim that you enjoy leaving than admit you were never certain anyone wanted you to remain. If I leave this island, I think I will do things differently. I will learn the names of the men who unload beside me. I will sit a little longer when someone offers coffee. I will stop treating every kindness as though it were a debt that I must repay before morning. And if I meet another man standing alone while everyone else rides home, I will sit beside him, even if neither of us has anything to say. But if I do not leave this place, I ask one thing of you. Say my name aloud, Owen Lee. That is all. I do not need a grand marker. There is no family plot waiting for my bones, and no hometown that would know where to place a statue. Just say my name once so that it exists somewhere beyond this island. Remember that I was here. I saw the sunrise over more oceans than I could count. I stood beneath foreign stars. I have been frightened, foolish, tired, and occasionally brave. I laughed more often than I expected to, and despite everything, I was glad to have lived. If there is someone waiting for you, do not make them wait longer than necessary. Go home when you can, and if no one is waiting, perhaps you might become a person who waits for someone else. That seems to me, tonight, like a worthy way to spend a life. My name is Owen Lee. For now, I am still here. Owen was rescued twelve days after writing that letter. When he returned to shore, he did exactly what he had promised. He found work as the night watchman at a busy harbor and kept a pot of coffee warm for sailors coming ashore after dark. He learned their names, and he listened to their stories. Every Christmas, Owen placed extra chairs around his table for anyone who had nowhere else to go, and young sailors arriving without money knew they could find a meal there. Older men who had outlived their families knew that Owen would leave a lamp burning until they came through the door. And he had no children of his own. But when Owen Lee died 38 years after the wreck, the little harbor chapel could not hold everyone who came to say goodbye. The letter remained folded inside his sea chest for the rest of his life, perhaps he kept it to remember the lonely man that he had once been. Or perhaps he kept it because that island taught him something that he never wanted to forget. A man can begin his life with no one waiting for him and still end it surrounded by people who are sorry to see him go. A man can begin his life with no one waiting for him and still end it surrounded by people who are sorry to see him go. Sometimes home is not a place you inherit. Sometimes it is something you build, one open door and one empty chair and one light left burning at a time. This has been Another Letters from the Sea. I'm Captain Harlow, and until next time, may the wind be kind and may it always carry you home.
