The Ornamented Being

“Today, 18th April, 1912. Carpathia finally arrives in New York. She passes her own Cunard pier, making her way to drop off Titanic’s lifeboats at the White Star Line pier, before returning to the Cunard pier to unload Titanic’s weary crew and passengers.”

There would be no smiling, cheering crowds waiting for the Titanic in New York on April 17. Instead, on April 18th the RMS Carpathia sailed into the harbor with a little over 700 bedraggled and weary survivors. At the White Star Line Pier she drops off 13 wooden boats. At 882 feet long the only remaining things of the so called Ship of Dreams were 13 lifeboats measuring 30 feet long.

For many this was meant to be the entry into a new life , a new opportunity to better the lives of themselves and their families. Instead the arrival only brought into focus the clear and cold reality of what had just been lost.

According to the memoirs of Lady Duff Gordon, ” …  where ten thousand men and women had waited for over two hours in a drizzling rain for news of friends and relatives who had been on the Titanic. Before the ship anchored we caught glimpses of white anxious faces with desperate eyes scanning our decks as the vast crowd waited silently. Women wrapped in costly furs and millionaires who had driven up in luxurious cars stood shoulder to shoulder with men and women from the slums, allied in a common sorrow, hoping the same forlorn hope. Most of the women were crying and the men stared straight ahead with set faces.”

Thus concludes my last post on the RMS Titanic. May she and those that followed her to the watery depths rest in peace secure in the knowledge that even though a century has passed, we still remember and we still mourn for her loss.