Titanic Thoughts

The last of my forced Tulips this spring..petals like Watered Silk

April 15th, 2012. Thoughts of the RMS Titanic sinking have been front and center locally. Media highlights covered by our local newspaper, the Halifax Herald have been remarkable especially their insert reprinted today of their front page one hundred years ago. It's like stepping back in time, and in fact, all the events abroad and locally, have been about, stepping back in time. It is here, in Nova Scotia, most of those lost and recovered, were put to rest eternally at Fairview Lawn Cemetery and other cemeteries in the area. Clicking and following the Fairview Lawn link will take you to the graves, a beautiful video sharing the poignant loss, accompanied by music.

Seafarers die every day all around the world, and organizations such as the Missions to Seafarers support them in so many ports worldwide. Still, we sometimes don't realize how many of the goods we consume come to us by sea, nor realize what hardships are undertaken by others, to deliver the commodity. The Captain and I have had many a sorry night aboard ship, far from home, full of worry, seas high, pounding waves, cargo loosed. No close calls thankfully.

How lucky, I have often thought, those on board the Titanic that night, had calm seas to say goodbye.

From Wikipedia:

RMS Titanic was a passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, UK to New York City, US. The sinking of Titanic caused the deaths of 1,514 people in one of the deadliestpeacetime maritime disasters in history. She was the largest ship afloat at the time of her maiden voyage. One of three Olympic class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line, she was built between 1909–11 by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. She carried 2,223 people

A hundred years later...

If you ever visit the graves in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and I sincerely hope you do....you will likely hear a piper lamenting, the music drifting, touching your heart. Your cheeks might be moist from the salt air or from tears, feeling the loss of so many. It is quite moving to see the same date on every grave stone and to read the inscriptions.

Spring bulbs are pushing through the ground now, and the many trees at Fairview Lawn Cemetery are budding, bursting with life. The sun reaches bright finger tips, warming the cold granite headstones, arranged like ribs on a ship, bodies planted below. The monuments mark those lost but not forgotten, even now, so many years later.