because 101 years is not long enough to forget

As I write this, I am sitting in the main library at my college, crying. I'm supposed to be writing my paper that analyses the ways that the media has affected our perception of and interaction with the Titanic myth, so to speak. This is a fascinating paper topic for me. I love it and I want all the books I checked out from the library to be mine forever.

That being said, some of the "research" that I've done today has led to some tears. And I think rightfully so. Because 101 years is too short a time to forget the night to remember.

This is why we cry. This is why we should cry.

Karl Thorsten Skoog, age 12

The grave of the only child recovered by the Mackay-Bennet (now known to be Sidney Goodwin)

The Goodwin family--all of them held third class tickets, all of them died. 

Jack Phillips, first Wireless Operator

The engineers who kept the lights burning, the pumps on, and the Marconi spark dancing to the very end, all so that other people's lives would be saved 

There are uncountable others, others whose faces have faded away because all who knew them are now dead. Now, they are only a name without italics on a page of victims. But each of those names was a person, one who had hopes and dreams for what the end of this journey would bring them. 

The night lives on. The night will always live on.