According to your sample code, you've assigned a value to $message, so when you do your "if" check, it will always be TRUE according to your setup.
Maybe change your "if" check to something else like:
if ($email) {
// send an e-mail
}
where $email is the e-mail address supplied by the visitor. This way, if the visitor hasn't supplied a (valid) e-mail address, you will not receive any notifications via e-mail.