A Visit to the Titanic

I remember a visit I made a while back to the RMS Titanic Exhibit in St. Petersburg, Florida. It was an extensive and moving collection of articles lifted from the mile long debris field leading to the ship. I remember being both captivated and humbled as I moved from item to item; from steward’s dinner jacket to jewelry to china tea cup, from huge propeller to child’s doll to tiny cuff link. As I began to focus on the people and what it must have been like for them, I walk through a double doorway with round portals in each door and found myself on the starboard deck of the Titanic, with its teakwood floor, mahogany bannisters and large white buttresses. It was dark, very dark...and cold, icy cold...and you could hear none-too-distant waves crashing and crashing below. The stars in the sky were just as they were that night. And they, as best they could, provided all the light. I suddenly realized, being a person of this time, a person accustomed to light, just how cold and dark and frightening it must have been for those families and individuals so far out to sea. I had my answer, my inkling of what it must have been like.

Struggling with my emotions, I came off of that deck, through similar doors, and passed through an ante room that I thought empty. As I was leaving the ante room for the next exhibit I heard this whiny voice behind me exclaim, “Look at that poor man. He must have a horrible life.”

I stopped. I turned around to see who owned the voice and whether the voice and its owner were referring to me. There, behind the door I’d come through, on a bench, sat two people. One, the owner of the voice, was a woman wearing carpel tunnel wrist guards. She was leaning forward, elbows on knees, teeth slightly bared, squinting at me through tortoise shell horn-rimmed glasses. Her husband sat next to her, leg crossed away from us, elbow in hand, hand on chin, face turned completely away. He neither wanted part of making eye contact with me nor part in what might happen.

I sat there, staring in disbelief, wondering whether or not I wanted to get into an enlightenment discussion. I wanted to clue her in on the fact that I had a home, a loving wife, a brand new son; that I had my own business, travelled extensively and had lots of friends all over the world. I wanted to explore her wrist guards and perhaps find common ground struggling with our insurance companies.

I wanted to do a lot of things, but this was the Titanic: hallowed ground. This was about 1,523 lost souls and countless thousands who missed them. I made a point of speaking with her later...outside.

I also made a point of noticing that she was part of our group. I paid attention to her from then on and found that she was complaining about everything! “It’s too cold in here. It’s too dark. Those people are in my way. I can’t see anything.”

I began to wonder...who had the bigger issues here? Me? Or the poor guy she’s married to...having to put up with that for fifty years...