Spanish family find message in a bottle containing ashes of man two years after their final goodbye

An unlikely friendship has been sparked after a Spanish family found a message in a bottle that travelled all the way from the United States.

But the contents of the bottle are even more unexpected: The Alvarez family in Carballo were visiting Praia de Razo on the northwest coast of the country when they found the bottle containing ashes – and a note from a heartbroken widow in Florida. 

The Alvarez family got in touch with Mary Whitt from Kentucky, who explained she’d dropped her husband Jerry’s ashes in the Atlantic Ocean while on a family trip to Florida to mark two months since his death. 

“I decided to put Jerry’s ashes in a bottle, and his picture and a note,” Mary said. “I thought that this would be a good way that he could travel.”

Two years later, the Alvarez family discovered the bottle and followed Mary’s request, sprinkling Jerry’s ashes in the north of Spain. 

Mary said: “It touched all of our hearts. It’s just so heartwarming and touching that they are this good to us.”

It has led to an unexpected friendship between the two groups, with the Alvarez family inviting the Whitts to come and visit them in Spain.

Speaking of the cross-continental friendship Mary’s daughter Emilee said: “I think he [Jerry] would be so excited to think that we have friends in Spain now.

“We talk often and he would have absolutely loved that.”