I have a thing for shipwrecks. Dunno what it is. I love ghosts, cemeteries, shipwrecks, & mysteries of all kinds. I'm not into cryptids & I don't believe in the supernatural for a cold minute, & I seriously love me a good story of a shipwreck discovery & the creepy-ass footage collected from side-scan sonar & underwater photography.
Many years ago, the Titanic exhibit came to my hometown, & because we're both into creepy shit, my mom & I went to see it. I had mixed feelings about it at the time - the ship is a grave; would it be respectful? Turns out it was actually pretty awesome: very well put together, told the story of both ship & people, & was highly immersive at some points.
I remember a couple of moments distinctly: rounding a corner to a display case with a clarinet in it, fully assembled. I played clarinet in my youth, & to be confronted with the instrument recovered from the wreck made my stomach fall: who was the player? Did they make it? Were they one of the band members, maybe? Were they playing the instrument as the ship sank?
Another: encountering The Big Piece & seeing a fraction of just how massive the ship was. https://www.titanicconnections.com/the-big-piece/
Another: listening to the soundtrack they provided to attendees as we passed through the section of the exhibit that was about the engineering section, and hearing the sound of a massive rush of water - just what the men in the boiler rooms would've heard at the time. That hit us both.
We finished up, somber. At the beginning they gave us tickets with names on them, who we were supposed to "be" during the visit. We looked at the wall of passengers & crew at the end & I think we both got lucky & "survived".
Four days later, two airliners slammed into the World Trade Center towers in New York, & the world was never the same again.
Sometimes something big happens, & your world is never the same again. Not just your world, but the *entire* world. Like the Titanic sinking, which led to massive overhauls of shipping safety regulations, many in place to this day. Or the shuttle Challenger disaster, which traumatized a generation of schoolchildren. Or 9/11, which... Jeezus, where to start?