Titanic finally at rest

Apparently the last survivor of Titanic's maiden voyage died on May 31st. Millvina Dean died at age 97 at a nursing home near Southampton, England. History reports that she was about 2 months old when Titanic sank. Her brother and mother made it on to a lifeboat with her, but her father did not survive the catastrophe.

Dean had no memory of the incident at all, and she was only made aware of it around her 8th birthday. After she was apprised of the disaster, she said she never wanted to hear about it again - ever.

Should I have experienced the same, I truly believe I would agree.

I saw Titanic with one of my dearest friends just before Christmas in 1997. By the end of the movie I was uncontrollably blubbering - completely incomprehensible in my sobbing - to the point where I think I scared my friend, Mark.

He looked at me and said, "Tracey, it's just a movie, it's okay!"

I turned on him, incredulous, and screamed, "It's NOT just a movie! I don't care about that Jack and Rose scenario! Don't you know that all really happened?! So many people died unnecessarily! How could they do that to each other - to children?!"

We went to dinner at Squid's in Chapel Hill afterwards and I remember our waitress feeling quite uncomfortable with my inability to stop weeping. It was truly not something I could control, and in fact, every time I watch the movie (as I did Sunday night because it was on TV) I experience the same emotions.

The following lines break me every time:

Fifteen hundred people went into the sea when Titanic sank from under us. There were twenty boats floating nearby and only one came back. One. Six were saved from the water, myself included. Six... out of fifteen hundred. Afterward, the seven hundred people in the boats had nothing to do but wait. Wait to die, wait to live, wait for an absolution that would never come.