Unsinkable Love

March 30, 1912

My Dearest Anna,

By the time you are reading this, I shall be on route to reuniting with you in New York. I know it has been months since I have seen and held you, I am excited about this voyage.

Since your family’s departure to America almost a year ago, so much has happened. I know you left because your family needed you on their farm. As you know my father was on his dying bed, and that prohibited me from joining your family in their new adventure in life. Unfortunately, my father has found his final resting place with my mum in their heavenly home. It took me a while, but I have squared away all remaining business here in Ireland. The money I have obtained I will use to invest in your family’s farm, as I have promised your father to help start our own family after our marriage.

Do you remember reading about the RMS Olympic in Belfast? It was the largest vessel in the ocean when your family left Ireland. Harland and Wolff have been working on its sister, the Titanic. The company is boasting it will make naval history as the largest transatlantic passenger ship and it is unsinkable. I have been fortunate enough to secure a contract of employment on the Titanic. I have been working since its launch from Belfast. I am planning to use this employment to travel to New York, departing from Southampton on April 10. The trip should take a week and we are schedule to arrive in New York on April 17. I will look for you at the docks when we arrive.

There are no words to compare how much I miss you. I continue to look up at the moon at night, whispering to you my love. Do you hear them when you dream at night as I hear yours? Do you still feel my love holding you, as your love continues to embrace me? To this day, I visit our secret place to reminisce about our time together when you were next to me. Especially the time when you accepted my proposal for marriage. Even with an ocean separating us, my love for you will always cross over it.

With my departure day rapidly arriving, I am going to need to end here to pack. I will look for you tonight, as I do every night, in my dreams.

See you tomorrow at the dock.

Your loving George.

April 16, 1912

She lowered the letter that was still warming her hand. It was the single piece of parchment she had been waiting to read after her family arrived to New York. She wished she could have stayed in Ireland with George. Now, they only had letters and the moon to deliver their love towards each other. After the first two months of residence in the new world, they had calculated their letters would take roughly two weeks to arrive to each other. Though it was her turn to write back, she was surprised by the arrival of his letter. She squealed enthusiastically. Her sister ran into their room to investigate.

“Anna, what is it? What is wrong?” Cathrine inquired with a worried look on her face.

“No, this is news the whole family needs to hear. Quick, run out to the crops and summon father and the boys. I will meet you in the dining area with mother,” Anna commanded, clutching the letter in her right hand to avoid losing it and the information it carried. The girls ran off in different directions to fulfill the request.

Minutes later she was standing in the dining area with her three sisters, two brothers, and her mother staring at her with puzzled looks. Her father finally walked into the room, dripped with sweat and exhaustion from the morning chores. “Catherine, what is it? What news do you have that requires us to stop. I still have over half an acre to plow.”

“It’s George, Father. He’s coming. He’s arriving tomorrow at the docks. He managed to work on the Titanic,” she replied, smiling from ear to ear.

Father looked back at his daughter. “The Titanic? I think some of the boys were talking about that. Isn’t it the sister ship of that other boat? What’s it called again?” He paused, scrunching his face in the attempt to remember.

“The Olympic,” her mother chimed in on cue.

Father nodded towards his wife in affirmation. “Right, the Olympic. Wow, they finally finished it? Well, I guess I’ll be having to take you to the docks then. We’ll have to set out early for the city. I reckon it’s just going to be you and I to make room for my future son-in-law and his belongings.”

“Yes, Father, I will be ready,” Anna acknowledged. She knew it would be difficult for her to sleep tonight with the excitement of reuniting with her true love.

As night fell, the family put their heads to rest at the sounds of the cricket’s singing. Anna was still clutching George’s letter to her heart when she closed her eyes. Visions of his face flooded her thoughts. She reminisced of the time they were together prior to her leaving Ireland.

“I don’t want to go. I want to stay here with you, George.” Anna had buried her face in his chest. It was their last night together as her family was preparing to abandon their home with the prospect of starting over in America.

“Anna, you have to go. Your family needs you. Your mother will not be able to raise your siblings without your assistance. Your father will be too busy on the farm to help your mother.”

Anna knew he was right, but it still failed to give her the strength to leave him behind. “I can stay here and help you with your father and together we could travel to America. Don’t you need help with that?”

“My father is ill. I reckon he will not make it to the end of the year. I would love for you to stay. In fact, I want to stay with you from here and forever more. You have my heart, Anna, and you always will. I see you in my dreams whenever you are not near. I have discussed this with your father and I will be part of your family once I travel to America. That is…if you’ll have me, as your future husband.”

Anna was speechless. It was a marriage proposal. “George, you have already spoke to my father regarding this?”

“Yes, my love. We are to become husband and wife in America after my arrival,” George promised, holding Anna tightly from behind.

“Oh George, I would love to have you as my husband. Think of our children and what they will be like.” Silence dropped over the two while the sun slowly glided to the horizon.

“What would you prefer, a daughter or a son?” Anna questioned George, caressing his arm that wrapped around her.

“I can’t,” George stuttered. “I wish I could, but…” George replied coldly.

“George, what do you mean, you can’t? I do not understand. Do you not dream of having a family as I do?”

“Anna…it’s cold. Anna, I-” George’s voice stopped. Anna withdrew her hand from George’s arm. She felt like she was caressing a block of ice and not the passionate limb that had been holding her.

“George, what’s wrong with you? Why are you suddenly so cold?” Immediately after the question left her lips, Anna felt a distinctive chill down her back as his body felt like a frigid sculpture of a man. Anna stood up away from George and looked back at him. The color in his face had become drained and all the remained was a dark blue shade of frozen horror.

“I will always love you,” George muttered, as Anna screamed in terror barely catching his last phrase.

“Anna, honey, wake up!”

Anna opened her eyes to be greeted by her father.

“Anna, Anna,” her father repeated holding her worrisomely.

Anna glanced around her surroundings. She was in her bed. Her family were concerned statues with their eyes fixated on Anna, who was drenched with sweat.

“You had a bad dream, Anna,” her mother explained softly, hoping to calm her daughter.

“It was George. Something is wrong. I can feel it,” Anna gasped.

“What do you mean, something is wrong? He’s coming in today, right? We’re going to head to the docks to pick him up, remember?” Her father reminded her.

Anna, still lying in her bed, sat up and met her father’s eyes. “No, Father, something is not right. I had a dream that something awful has happened to him.” She wanted to explain the dream, but was not ready to.

Fear washed over her father’s face. He was searching for the right words to comfort his daughter before settling with, “I am sure he is fine. He is coming in on the Titanic, remember? If it’s anything like the Olympus, only an act of God could stop that behemoth from arriving.”

The words of confirmation to her father’s statement escaped her. She wanted to believe he was right, to trust in the man who raised her and was always there for her, parting words of wisdom. The dream, or better rephrased as a nightmare, continued to pull at the strings of reality. George’s sudden change in his behavior and temperature felt so life-like, she was unable to accept the reassurance her father was offering. Yet, she knew her father would persist.

“I hope you are right, Father,” she uttered under her breath.

Hours after the awakening, Anna and her father had packed up the family carriage in preparation for the journey to Chelsea Piers. They would have to travel to the train station in Albany, purchase tickets and ride into Manhattan. It would be a 6 hour journey to the piers. They also had to factor in wait time for the Titanic arrival. Father had calculated the trip would take half a day.

Anna boarded the carriage, still haunted by her nightmare. What was George trying to tell her in the dream? Why did he seem colder than she remembered when they were together in Ireland? Questions rotated in her mind like the wheels on the locomotive after they boarded the train in Albany. As the train continued closer and closer to Manhattan, Anna’s stomach twisted with incomprehensible uneasiness.

Once they had arrived in Manhattan, they exited the train and proceeded through the bustling streets of the city. Though Anna had experienced the city when her family arrived earlier, she was still awe-struck by the modernization that greeted her. It was enough for her to forget about her fearful dream and focus on the amazing sights embracing her. Her father hailed a taxi cab and within minutes they would be arriving at the pier.

Anna’s attention refocused on her reunion with her true love. Soon the Titanic would arrive and George’s childish smile would erase any doubts that may have clutched her the night before. She would feel the warmth of his body, the love of his heart and the serenity of his cerulean eyes. Nervous excitement gradually building inside her with each passing corner on route to Chelsea Piers.

Anna and her father exited the cab and headed to Pier 59, where the Titanic was estimated to arrive. They swam their way through the sea of immigrants and residence who were either coming to America and departing. As they approached the pier, Anna could feel a change in the people around her. The happiness of arriving to the relatively new country seemed to dissipate, replaced by a heavy cloud of somber. Sobs sang a sonnet in unison, leaving Anna inquisitive to the situation they had stumbled into. Anna’s heart thumped. A thump of fear. A thump of unwanted realization of her emotions. She closed her eyes to listen intently to the sonnet being breathed by her surroundings.

“It sank.”

“How many survived?”

“Unbelievable.”

“The unsinkable sank.”

“Glacier.”

“Frozen water.”

George

Her private thoughts interrupted the melody of mournfulness. Her father clutched her hand. They both slowly piecing together the scene they were witnessing before them. The Titanic had sunk. Rumors of survivors hung in the air. Anna needed more information. She glanced up at her father with grief stricken eyes. He read her thoughts and made every attempt he could to console her as tears began to glisten.

“He’s going to be ok,” he assured. “He has to be one of the survivors.”

Anna thought back to her dream. I will always love you. George’s last words. His shivering body. His frozen glaze. Had it been a premonition? If so, she was not ready to believe it to be true. Anna and her father later learned about the survivors who were estimated to arrive the next day. A small glimmering ray of hope for George’s existence struck Anna’s beaten heart. They decided to stay in the city and wait for the survivors to dock to see if George was among them. They found a hotel and stayed the night.

Sorrow rose with the sun on April 18th. Anna and her father promptly rejoined the desperate crowd on Pier 59. A collective prayer for the survivors filled the chilly gray skies. It was reported that the Carpathia would be arriving in the evening. Anna and her father spent the day near the piers in case the Carpathia would miraculously arrive prior to its estimation.

“He has to be on the boat. He has to have survived.” Her father continued to stoke the fire of faith for his speechless daughter. The dream with George resurfaced during the night, leaving Anna anchored to George’s final words. She continued waiting in mournful silence, bracing herself for what she felt had to be true.

The Carpathia’s arrival at 9 PM that night had an estimate of 700 people clambered onto the docks, just to be engulfed by the herd of hopeful people seeking their love ones. Anna’s father signaled her to be patient and held her back from entering the frenzy. Minutes became hours, but people were still parked at the pier. The last survivor exited the Carpathia, sinking any remaining optimism for others who were waiting, including Anna.

Anna, slapped with the realization of George’s death, dropped to her knees. Her father quickly caught her, embraced her to keep her from hitting the ground. George had become a prisoner of the Atlantic. Her love stripped from her before it was given the chance to blossom. Tears streamed down her face like the rain that poured over the pier, reinforcing the atmosphere of desolation. She wanted to dash to the harbor master and demand for her love to be returned to her. In a fit of fury, she cursed the sea for claiming George. Her father helplessly continued to hold her, wishing she did not have to experience a loss love at a young age.

One year later, Anna became aware of news stating the construction of a memorial to honor those who lives were abducted by the sea on the fateful night of April 15, 1912. Anna decided she would pay her respects and made her way to the memorial. She silently stood in front of the lighthouse in New York, her left hand wrapped by her right. She closed her eyes and softly prayed.

“I understand what you were trying to tell me, George. You came to me, my love. You wanted to keep your promise to me, even in your moment of frozen death. You risked all your energy to bid me your final farewell. I know you are heart broken with the fact that I must walk alone. Your promise to me has been fulfilled in a way no one can ever match. Though, I miss you, your smile, your laugh, your eyes, and your arms wrapped around me on golden evenings, I know you will always be here with me. One day, when it is my time to cross over the seas to heaven, I will be with you again. I will always look for you in my dreams and share with the moon my love for you. Your final words to me were ‘you will always love me.’ I will always love you. From now until forever.”

Anna opened her eyes and slowly walked away.