A bittersweet story today about the loss of a child and a note in a bottle.
It’s been almost two months since 10-year-old Delaney Riley died suddenly after collapsing on her walk to school. Doctors later discovered that she had a congenital heart defect that had gone undetected.
The Ohio fifth grader, a Girl Scout who once told a teacher she was most grateful for “God, good days and great people,” was memorialized in late September. Thousands of friends, family members, teachers and neighbors gathered in a park to release pink and green balloons in her honor.
Over the weekend, Delaney’s mother, Chrissy Horning, received a forwarded text message from two girls close to her daughter’s age. They had found a message in a bottle written by Delaney.
She told Cleveland’s Fox 8 News, “It’s a sign that her daughter will never truly be gone.
Last June, Delaney and her best friend, Abigail, were on vacation in Hilton Head, South Carolina, when they decided to create a time capsule of sorts for a message in a bottle.
They drew pictures and wrote letters and placed them in a plastic bottle, and tossed it into the ocean. In one of the letters, Delaney expressed her love for art and her dreams of becoming a residential architect.
They had included Abigail’s mother’s cell phone number in the letter—that’s how the girls who found the bottle were able to eventually reach Horning.
Horning said, “She’s our angel watching us. It was a sign that she’s here with us, and a sign that we really needed.”