My Heart Will Go On…

It’s fair to say that I didn’t know a ton about Titanic until I saw the movie. You know the one I’m talking about. The movie that everyone saw. As a history enthusiast, I certainly knew the basics. Big boat is unsinkable. Big boat sinks. Lots of people perished. Very, very sad.

I was in seventh grade when the movie came out, and even though I love history, I wasn’t all that excited about seeing it. “Chick film,” I said when people asked me why not. As one of the world’s biggest tomboys, I just wasn’t really interested in a sappy love story.

But everyone kept talking about it. And I do mean everyone. Teachers, students, family, friends. People in my class were boasting about seeing it multiple times. That Celine Dion song whispered from every radio in every store (did I just date myself? Pretty sure I just dated myself…). Then there was the sheer numbers aspect of it. The movie was still in theaters months after its release. Still making money. Still making cinema history. And at the Oscars that year, it would make awards history as well.

It was Thanksgiving weekend when a friend of mine called me and asked if I would go see it with her. She had seen it multiple times already, and she was determined to wear me down. So, I agreed to go, just to feel like I could partake in conversations again if nothing else. And wouldn’t you just know it? I ended up, just like everyone else, getting pretty swept up into the story.

Not so much the love story (although I did have a bit of a crush on pretty Leo. We all did back then). But the historical story. Just how grand a ship Titanic really was. Not just the luxury and the famous people aboard, but the feat of engineering for its time. The mechanical marvel. All of it so tragically lost along with the souls of so many people, because of a series of errors that would be laughable if they hadn’t resulted in the loss of so much life. After the credits rolled, I felt gutted. Not because (SPOILER ALERT) she didn’t move over on the door, and she threw that damn jewel over the side of the railing. I felt gutted because for the first time, I really understood the tragedy of the Titanic. I understood why the story had grabbed on and taken hold through the ages, just like Kate Winslet on that door.

So, I did what any seventh-grade nerd would do. The very next Monday, I went to the library. I checked out books, and I began to read. Which was the beginning of a deep fascination with the Titanic. Spurred on by a sappy love story that I had put off seeing for so long. While the ocean’s greatest tragedy didn’t grip me quite the same way as my passion for the World Wars did, it was always floating in the background (tee hee). If I saw a new book, I would likely grab it. Sure, it would sit on my shelf for a while, but I would always sink into it eventually (oh dear, it’s so easy to pun).

As the years passed, I became a bit of a Titanic expert, even though I wasn’t very loud about it. Rather, the knowledge just kept accumulating in a quiet sort of way. This old Tomboy just didn’t want to admit that a love story movie had affected me so much. But when I visited Ireland in 2016 with a dear friend, she brought up something that made me very excited. We were contemplating things to do around Belfast when she quite casually mentioned the Titanic museum.

My ears immediately perked up. My eyes went wide. “Say what?”

“Titanic museum,” she repeated. A world-famous Titanic exhibit, right there in the very place where Titanic had actually been built. What a treat! What a way to totally out myself as one of those Titanic buffs who got bit by the movie and never fully recovered. “Yes,” I cried out. “Book the tickets!”

We arrived at the museum on a very blustery and cloudy day, and the first thing to grab me was the architecture. Somebody was using their head with that design, because the whole building kind of puts you in mind of the tragic liner. From the time you set foot on the property, it’s like you’re taking a leap through the years and boarding the Titanic yourself.

Which is exactly what I tried to do inside my mind when I entered that museum. Soaking in the incredible idea that it was right in the very place where I was standing that Titanic had arisen from a dream and a blueprint to a very real ship. That was really something to take in as I went from exhibit to exhibit. Learning, remembering, and being amazed.

And there’s a lot to be amazed about at that museum. The place focuses more on the engineering aspect of the Titanic. Astounding details of how it was built, how many crew members were involved, how many lives this ship truly affected when it sank to its watery doom in the North Atlantic. Exhibits tell you the stunning amounts of supplies brought on board to see to the luxurious travel of all those passengers (another spoiler alert – it was A LOT). The work, the creativity, and the truly “unsinkable” spirit that went into designing this incredible floating city from bow to stern. Bottom to top. Inside and out. You can even see the exact slip the Titanic sat in while she was being constructed.

And yes, the museum has a great deal of information about the sinking itself, and the aftermath of that sinking, and the repercussions for the Harland & Wolff shipyard. Because it wasn’t just about the lives lost. To them, it was also about the future lives at stake. It was about navigating a dizzying array of safety errors that could never, ever again be repeated. Which got me thinking a lot about what it must have been like to be an employee at this shipyard. How awful it must have felt to hear that one of your crowning achievements didn’t even survive its maiden voyage. That the unsinkable spirit you put into building didn’t come to physical fruition for the doomed liner.

Then I got to thinking even more. We hear so many things about the people who died on the Titanic, and even more about the people who lived. Because many of them became famous, even if it was for the most awful reasons imaginable. Reasons like losing loved ones who happened to be absurdly wealthy. Or boarding a boat and leaving your husband or son behind. Or having all your worldly possessions lost, and having to start over in a strange land across the world with no papers and no money.

But what I really wanted to know about the survivors, and what very few of the memoirs really touch on, was what it must have been like to carry the weight of such a tragedy for the rest of your days. The survivor’s guilt. The pain. Those feelings must have been there. I mean, think about it. You step into a lifeboat thinking that you’ll come right back. This is all just a training exercise. Nothing to worry about. Then you watch in slack-jawed horror as the people you left behind plunge to an icy death. That says nothing of the people who boarded lifeboats later in the evening, when it had become abundantly clear that something had gone horribly awry with the “training exercise.” And the seat you were taking on a boat had pretty dire consequences for the people still on board the liner. I can’t imagine any of it would sit well on the psychology.

The more I thought about all these things, both at that museum and in my time reading about Titanic, the more I decided that it was time to do what any writer would do.

But for many, many years, I didn’t. Instead, I ceded any stories about Titanic to Mr. James Cameron. I mean, eleven Oscar statues means that he more or less has the last word on that disaster, right? Any story I had to tell about it simply wouldn’t hold a candle to his. Yet I couldn’t let the Titanic go. I couldn’t stop reading about it. Couldn’t stop storing information inside my mind.

It was several years after I first started researching Titanic that I learned something incredible. There were many people who worked for the White Star Line who survived the Titanic. And some of those people, despite what they had been through, continued to work for the company. Which means they allowed themselves to be assigned to other ships so they could keep their jobs. Somehow, they picked up the pieces and got back on the water.

One of those people was named Violet Jessop. After escaping a watery grave aboard Titanic, she went to work on Britannic. And she had also previously done some time on Olympic. This made her a bit special, earning her a dubious distinction of being aboard all three ships when they met disaster in some form. Olympic colliding with another ship, Titanic sinking, and Britannic running over a mine in World War I.

What luck, huh? The story shocked me. When I dug into it a little deeper, I learned she wasn’t even the only one. There were multiple people who were aboard both Titanic and Britannic. Who had front row seats to some truly terrible Maritime disasters, but who kept getting back on the water. Which sort of sealed the deal for me. James Cameron and his Titanic love story hadn’t fished out the pond. There were still lots of stories to be told about Titanic, and I had just found the one I wanted to tell. A story about how lightning can indeed strike in the same place twice, but we can still get back up and get going. A lesson that all of us could stand to learn these days.

So, I have begun the research. I have started developing some characters. I have written some ideas in my famous “Ideas Journal.” I will pick up my pen and get started. For Violet, if nothing else. Sure, the story I write probably won’t win any Oscars. But it will still teach. People will still learn. Society will remember. And my little writer heart will go on!

To plan your visit to the Titanic Museum in Belfast – click here! 

And Titanic isn’t all I write about! For more about my writing and published works – click here!