Racine Sun

Joanie Giusto always hoped that her words would have resonance.

Back in June, when the Racine, Wisconsin resident and her husband were boating on Lake Michigan and stumbled across a message in a bottle one of the first things that came to her mind was how she wanted to pen a message of her own in the name of eventually uplifting someone else.

 "Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think, and loved more than you know,” RacineCountyEye.com reports Giusto wrote, while imploring whoever found the bottled wisdom to “do something nice for somebody today.”

Giusto said she also remembers wondering how long the faded message she found, which included the words “miss you” and “long live,” had been in the water and where it came from, information she made sure to include in her own writing.

"I said to my husband, I wish I knew how long this has been in the water, and I wish I know where it came from," she said. "I felt bad because whoever wrote it, obviously lost somebody that they loved, and they were hurting."

All of it was enough to move Giusto to action as she recalls thinking to herself “everybody is usually going through something in their life, I hope whoever gets it, if anybody gets it, I hope they need it.”

Two months later, Giusto’s bottled message ended up nearly 100 miles from Racine, across Lake Michigan, and in the hands of Toni Machuk, who said she was strolling the beach when looking for beach glass when she plucked the bottle out of the water.

“I saw something bobbing in the water about three feet away,” said Machuk, who describes herself as an avid beachgoer and beach glass collector that prides herself in being one of the first ones on the beach each day.

"I’ve got one of those extended sand sifters and I pulled it out of the water,” she added. “When I got home, my son goes, ‘Mom, did you read the message?'” She then said, “what message?” to her son.

As the two read each of the word together, Giusto remembers immediately being moved by them.

“It was heartfelt when she wrote it. And definitely, I feel like I was the lucky one that found it,” she said, adding that since having the experience she’s been sharing some of her beach glass finds with others along the water as a simple, kind way to spread joy.

After finding the bottled message, Machuk wrote about it on Facebook, over time hoping to find the original author. She and Giusto were soon connected over social media and have now become fast friends.

“It only took two days for her to find me,” said Machuk, while Giusto still marvels at the way everything has turned out.

“I couldn’t believe anybody found it and I couldn’t believe anybody posted it and then found me,” she said.