No good choice

I went with a friend to see an exhibit about the Titanic today, and I really enjoyed it.

There was a lot of history about the boat and passengers. There were also some tour guides there in costume and character, including a man who was in the role of Captain Smith. Apparently, the captain was getting ready to retire when they talked him into taking one last cruise.

There were a lot of artifacts that have been salvaged from the wreckage. I wasn't surprised to see some metal tools and dishes. I was, however, surprised to see a piece of sheet music, a ride ticket for Coney Island and a perfectly preserved wooden carpenter's ruler. You would think all of those things would be the first stuff to disintegrate. It was all about where certain items were stored. Like the ruler. It was kept in a leather case that had been tanned using chemicals that ended up acting as a preservative for the wood on the ruler.

One thing that surprised me was all the little things that could've changed the outcome. As it was leaving port, Titanic almost hit another ship. What if it had hit that ship and had to stay in port for repairs? The telegraph operator turned off the telegraph at one point. What if he had left it on and had gotten the notification that could've altered the course of the ship? Because they were convinced nothing could happen to the ship, they didn't even put red flares on the ship. Red flares were the ones used as S.O.S. signals. Titanic shot white flares, but a nearby ship saw the white and thought they were fireworks. What if they had been able to shoot red flares?

But by far, the passengers faced the worst dilemmas.

When they started loading the lifeboats, it was women and children first. How could you possibly get on a lifeboat if your husband couldn't come with you? 

The staff members tried to get one woman to get on, but she refused. She said to her husband, "Where you go, I go." That brought tears to my eyes right there in the middle of the exhibit. I couldn't imagine getting on the lifeboat and leaving Jeff behind.

Then it got even worse. I read about how one woman was married AND had sons old enough to be considered men. Leave your husband and sons? No way!

One woman was holding her baby when someone grabbed the baby and basically threw it to someone in a lifeboat. Then they threw the woman into a different lifeboat. When they were rescued, another woman tried to claim the baby as her own. It took a whole day to get the baby back to the mother. So you survive such a tragedy only to have something try to steal your baby?

I think by far the worst decision would have to be if you were a wife and mother of boys and girls. Do you get on a lifeboat and save your girls? Or do you keep your family together, knowing you'll all perish?

When you enter the exhibit, you get a boarding pass with the name and information of a real passenger. At the end, you can look on a manifest to see if your passenger survived or not.

My passenger survived. And because she was a first-class passenger who stayed in the most expensive suite on the ship, her adult son was able to get on a lifeboat pretty early in the process, too.

I hope I never have to make such a terrible decision. I want to keep my boys with me as long as possible.