Lost at Sea

We are given a ticket when we enter the exhibit. We are told it is an exact replica of an original boarding pass. It holds an actual passenger’s name; one that boarded the Titanic on its first and only voyage 96 years ago. Personal information about each passenger is on the ticket. I am a first class passenger; a business man. My son, Jaevin, is a third class immigrant bringing his family to America for a better life. His friend, Dakota is a second class mother.

“At the end of the exhibit there is a list of survivors and those lost at sea,” says the guide.

We are not permitted to take pictures; and I am disappointed. I have brought Jaevin to the Ontario Science Centre because he’s fascinated with the Titanic. The moment we walk into the first room my disappointment becomes understanding. I would not take my camera to a grave yard; and these eerily preserved artifacts have come from a graveyard at sea.

A door handle, a piece of rope and an engine thermometer, over-looked and taken for granted in their formal lives, now are guarded and treasured. These ordinary things are rare because they survived when so many others perished.

We walk down a first-class hallway. It is beautifully decorated with white walls and a dark burgundy carpet. Each accessory, such as door handles and lamps, is gold-plated and engraved with beautiful designs. There’s a happy melody playing. It is bright, warm and elite. I can see the ghost of John Jacob Astor, a wealthy first-class passenger, wearing his tall hat and holding his hand out to his new bride, Madeleine. They walk slowly down the hall in front of me and disappear.

We see a spacious first-class room; it’s filled with luxuries such as a fireplace, vanity, a soft comfy bed and a round table to entertain guests with a cup of tea. This room would have had its own promenade deck for strolling. First class excesses. Everything on Titanic was new and expensive.

I caress the velvety cord blocking me from the room. I can smell the ghost of fresh coffee and the fine cuisine and delicacies being served aboard the Titanic during breakfast. The first-class menu consists of sirloin steak, omelets and fresh fruit; third class passengers were given oatmeal, bread and marmalade.

We continue walking and enter a third-class hallway. It is bare. It is cold. It is dimly lit. The loud pounding of the boiler room can be heard instead of music.

“Who slept here, Mommy? It’s smaller than my room!” Jaevin says, pointing to a third-class room.

This room, expected to house entire families, is one-fifth of the size of a first-class room. It is grey and dark. Two bunk beds are cramped against the walls, leaving just enough room for a small dresser. Each bed has one, thin White Star blanket. Uncovered pipes run along the roof; barely leaving room for passengers sleeping on the top bunk. Only a small round porthole would have reminded these passengers that they were on a “ship of dreams” and not in a cell. There were only two bathtubs available for the 700 third-class passengers to share.

Jaevin pulls my hand. He has made another chilling discovery.
“Why is there a chain here?”
I look and I can’t answer him for a moment; if I do I will begin sobbing.
“These chains are here to keep the gate locked. Third-class passengers were not allowed to go up to the rest of the ship.”

I can hear the ghost of immigrant, Mr. Sage, begging the guard to open the gate and give him, his wife, and nine children a chance to survive. As cold water begins rushing down the hallway he holds his youngest child and cries; “Just give us a chance!”

I can’t move for a moment, but Jaevin is calling from the next room, so I must leave these ghosts forever pleading.

The boiler room is astonishing. Men, not machines, laboured here to keep the ship moving. Shoveling coal day and night, these men became black with soot. They would have had only seconds to escape from the boiler room, as water rushed in, before the bulkhead door slammed shut in an attempt to keep the water from the rest of the ship.

A giant iceberg sits below dark skies illuminated with sparkling, beautiful stars. It was deceptively calm and breathtaking night; a contradiction to the pending chaos and horror. I pull back my hands quickly when I touch the iceberg; it is unbearable. The water was below freezing and the shock of plunging into it would be similar to being stabbed by one thousand knives.

I can hear ghost cries of passengers struggling to stay alive in the freezing Atlantic Ocean on April, 14, 1912. John Jacob Astor was crushed by a smokestack as his wife sat shivering in one of the only 20 lifeboats. The entire Sage family drowned.

Most passengers did not drown immediately after the ship disappeared into the sea. Hundreds of people were left screaming in the ocean until their screams subsided into whimpers, then silence, as they painfully and slowly froze to death.


We are now standing before the list at the end of the exhibit.

“Can you find my name, Mom?” Jaevin asks .

I feel the ghosts of loved ones frantically searching the faces of survivors being led off the rescue ship, the Carpathia, after docking in New York. I search with them, but do not find our names on the “Saved” list.

I clutch my boarding pass and realize that when we take away the handlebar moustaches, the large hats and furs the passengers are stripped to humanity. These were true people. This was a true disaster. Our only difference is our position on the earth’s timeline.

I feel true horror as I locate our names. All three of us were “Lost at Sea”.

Scrapbooking Therapy

Therapy through Scrapbooks

By: Brandy Ford

Scrapbooking is more than just putting photos in an album. It is about telling stories.

I started my first scrapbook the day after Mom said she was having brain surgery.

“The aneurysm has grown,” she said.

I used to give Mom the Silent Treatment. I would ignore her completely; pinch my lips shut, walking away from her if I didn’t get my way.

Once she had rented a steamer and had spent hours steaming the wallpaper from my walls so I could keep it as a memento. It was covered with signatures from my friends. Mom was able to save each and every piece of it.

I began writing memory after memory and glanced up at one of my favourite pictures. It is of me, Mom and my grandmother. I am eight months pregnant with my first child.

It became clear what I needed to do.

I was going to preserve our memories and let my parents know how much I love them.

I was going to think of every little rotten thing I did when I was a teenager and make amends.

I started crying. My cries emerged into sobs. My sobs escalated into a howl. Then I was puffy-faced and silent. I was finally ready to begin.

I chose a simple piece of baby blue paper to start. I searched through my pile of pictures until I found the one of my parents holding my son, Jaevin, for the first time.

“Joy was the day I placed my newborn son in your arms and saw the love you felt for him.” I wrote.

“I’m sorry for every fight I ever had with Jesse”

“Thank you for welcoming Darren into our family and for instantly calling Jemelie and Joriana your granddaughters.”

I became obsessed with pictures and recording every little memory I had.

“Thank you for making us eat dinner together as a family each night at the table.”

“I’m sorry for making you worry when I didn’t come home on curfew.”

“I remember thinking that my parents were invincible.”

Words and photographs melded.

I worked on the scrapbook fanatically until the last possible moment.

“We’ve got to get going,” Darren said. We were all meeting at a hotel in Toronto before Mom’s operation.

“Hold on. I’ve got one more picture.”

It was the picture of Mom, my grandmother and me. Three generations of mothers and daughters.

I had completed my first scrapbook; and showed it to Mom later that night.

“I want to show you something,” she said. She had a small photo album in her bag. It held pictures of our entire family and artwork from her grandchildren. She, too, had needed to create a scrapbook.

The doctor operated on Mom for hours the next morning. Finally he came to tell us she was okay.
I cried when I saw Mom’s bandaged face, and I realized that my first scrapbook wasn’t completed. I had just started it and I will be adding pages to it for the rest of my life.

Book Hero

“Did you know Grampy is a super hero?” I asked my brother, Jesse, one day when we were at my grandparent’s house.

“Grampy isn’t a super hero, Brandy,” my mom laughed. “He drives the bookmobile.”

I had no idea what a bookmobile actually was, but I envisioned him driving around in a vehicle similar to an ice cream truck. Instead of people lining up to ask him for a double scoop vanilla cone, they would say, “Can I have a Judy Blume with a few sprinkles of Gordon Korman, please?”

Grampy would disappear into the back of his bookmobile, like Clark Kent jumping into phone booths, and emerge magically with “How to Eat Fried Worms” or “Julie of the Wolves.” I was sure he would hand over books to excited children with a smile and a tip of his hat.

I thought people could just phone up the library and order a book to have delivered to their door like pizza.

“Can I have some Babysitters’ Club books today, please, and maybe a few Nancy Drew mysteries on the side?”

Library books were magic to me, and my grandfather was the magician.

I felt like Charlie finding the last ticket to the chocolate factory every time we went to visit my grandparents. I imagined a stack of books waiting for me to breathe life and imagination into them.

“Grampy, do you have any new books for me?” I asked him as soon as he got home.

He nodded and quietly led me to the back room where books kept their tales hidden beneath tempting covers. I would choose a few beckoning paperbacks; make myself comfortable and decide which book would cast its spell on me first.

The words captivated me and I thought about the hundreds of people that must have turned the same pages. Had they laughed when Anne dyed her hair green at Green Gables; did they tremble when Will was chased by Tripods on his journey to the White Mountains?

Each book would have a mysterious word stamped on it in bold, black ink: discarded.

“What does ‘discarded’ mean, Grampy?” I asked.

“It means the library can’t use them anymore,” he said.

I felt like Fern must have when her mother told her what was going to happen to the baby pig in the barn.

“But, what’s wrong with them?” I cried.

“They’re worn out or damaged from being read so many times.”

“And no one wants them anymore?” I could not believe this injustice. Precious books cast away because they had been loved too much?

“Well, I know someone who wants them,” Grampy said with a smile. “Why do you think I bring them home? I know a girl who’s a great reader.”

“You rescue books, Grampy! I told Jesse you were a super hero!” I said earnestly and proudly.

And, like Fern running to save Wilbur from harm, I made it my mission to read as many discarded books as possible. It was my duty to give them one more moment of glory.

Grampy may have not known how to fly and he might not have had x-ray vision; but I’m positive he had a cape. All super heroes do.

Remember Me

“Can I sell this on eBay?” Jaevin, my then five-year-old son, asked me last April. He held a crayon masterpiece in his hands.
“Sure,” I answered. So cute and sweet, I thought. “What are you going to do with all the money?” I imagined him having a goal of being able to buy a mass supply of candy and a lava lamp he desperately wanted.
“I’m going to give it to the scientists so they can fix great-Nanny’s brain so she will always remember me,” he told me as though it were obvious.
My heart jolted and my eyes watered uncontrollably. I looked more intensely at his picture as he described it to me.
“That’s me with Great-Nanny and I am picking a sunflower for her. There’s a colorful rainbow all around us. I just need you to help me spell “remember”, Mommy. I am going to print “remember me” on it so she knows it’s me.”
I was blown away by Jaevin’s compassion and desire to do something so wonderful to help his “great-Nanny”- my grandmother. She has been struggling with Alzheimer’s disease for several years.
Jaevin was concerned about his great-Nanny’s strange behavior and questioned why she sometimes didn’t know who he was or remember what she was doing. We explained that Alzheimer’s was a disease affecting Nanny’s brain and her ability to remember. We also told him that there were special people working on finding a cure for Alzheimer’s, and that research was expensive.
Each summer our family spends a lot of time with my grandparents at the cottage in Fenelon Falls. At moments my grandmother seems like an innocent, child-like girl; a perfect companion for Jaevin. They laugh and watch the ducks and look at her gardens, but he is always protecting her.
This past summer when we were visiting, a man came up to the cottage. My grandmother looked at me and Jaevin and said, “I may not know who I am all the time, but I know that is Jeffrey!” (I hadn’t even recognized him; and it was one of my own relatives.)
Jaevin walked over to the lawn chair she was sitting on, softly caressed her cheek, and said, “I will always remind you that you’re great-Nanny.”
Looking at his beautiful picture I was overwhelmed by his simple gesture of love and desire to help his great-Nanny. I thought we had helped Jaevin cope with Nanny’s disease by explaining it and providing him with the facts he needed, but he had been processing the information for months trying to find a solution. He simply did not want his great-Nanny to forget him- Ever.
Jaevin had heard me talk frequently about making money on eBay, an on-line auction site that allows people to sell and buy items from around the world. I felt somewhat embarrassed that it was a child’s unwavering optimism and innocence that pointed out the potential of raising money on eBay.
I put his picture up on eBay for him with an opening bid of 99 cents, knowing that my husband and I would be the winning bidders, but wanting to encourage his compassion and help fulfill his dream.
However, my husband and I were not the lucky winners of the auction.
Jaevin was interviewed by local newspapers and his auction was covered on national television. He became a mini-celebrity during his week-long auction, and quite a bit of attention was focused on him and his picture. During all the craziness and excitement, he maintained his innocence and truly didn’t understand why everyone was so interested in him and his drawing. He had one, and only one, goal in mind; raising money to fix his great-Nanny’s brain.
When he was asked how much he hoped to sell his picture for, he blurted out enthusiastically, “100 moneys!”
But he received much more than any of us could have imagined.
His beautiful work of art sold for $1000.00!
There were many people who could not afford to bid on it, but they donated to his cause. He received donations as little as $1.00 to as high as $1000.00.The total received (all from complete strangers) was an unbelievable $2600.00; and he donated all of it to the Alzheimer Society.
It was a bittersweet moment when the auction ended.
“Now we can fix great-Nanny!” Jaevin shouted as he jumped up and down with his sister.
“All this money will definitely help the scientists, Jaevin,” I told him, choking back my tears so I would not ruin his moment of glory. “But great-Nanny’s brain won’t be fixed right away. It takes time.”
“No, she’ll remember me now, Mommy. I drew her a picture!” he insisted.
Jaevin presented the winning bidders with the original drawing at an emotional ceremony given by the Alzheimer Society in St.Catharines, but we had scanned a copy for him to give to my grandmother.
He was excited, yet nervous to give her the picture. Fate was on our side because the day he gave it to her, she was happy and seemed like herself. She snuggled him and said, “You’re a good boy, Jaevin.”
And she knew exactly who he was.