So, this is what it must have felt like on that glorious but now doomed craft, only two short hours after the iceberg, hidden just beneath the surface, tore violently through its hull:
Desperately clinging to a frozen rail, struggling to stand on a badly tilting deck that is becoming more vertical by the second, while all around swirl the sounds of glass shattering, wooden planks splitting, and people coming undone.
This must have been the utter horror of watching something unfathomable unfolding in front of you; the helplessness of trying to solve a riddle that seemed to hold no possible solution.
The disbelief would have been breathtaking.
You can hear the words ricocheting wildly inside their heads:
This isn’t possible! This can’t be happening!
They had been assured of their safety from the outset.
Something this massive, this sturdy, this powerful was supposed to be unsinkable, impervious to any threat, immune to any danger.
I imagine it would have been that myth of invincibility that filled some with a hubris that made them feel no panic, even as the integrity of the vessel had already been mortally compromised. They heeded no instructions from the shaken crew, ignored the screeching alarms, paid no mind to the raw-throated, panicked shouts of the already convinced passengers.
Standing here now, it’s easy to understand how a false sense of security could have anesthetized so many there, so much so that they were not concerned despite the rising chaos surrounding them. They believed what they had previously heard rather than what their eyes were now telling them. Even as the beams beneath their feet gave way, they assured themselves that all was going to be well, if for no other reason than up until this point, it had always been well.
As the quickly darkening stern began to rise high above them, so many still inexplicably insisted they were safe.
But I can now easily imagine that for many in that disabled, damned ship, there eventually came a point when, despite all their efforts to think away the nightmares, the grim reality descended from the pitch black sky and settled like a stone upon their chests as they realized: We’re probably not making it out of this.
We… are… sinking.
And yet, pressed up against their imminent extinction, faced with the inevitability of the end, fully saturated with a heavy grief, they too must have realized they still had one question left to answer: Who am I going to be in these final moments?Will I numb myself with spirits and get drunk upon denial, defiantly refusing to believe things are dire until the moment the black water engulfs me and the truth can no longer be avoided?Will I withdraw to some hidden place and try to quietly ride out the end, as if not watching and not listening will somehow exempt me from suffering?
Or, will I choose to spend every possible second before sinking into the frigid abyss, being as human as I can be?
Will I bring comfort to those whose hearts are unsettled? Will I rescue those in peril, even if it is but a reprieve? Will I exhaust every muscle trying to get some to safety, however unlikely the prospects? Will I fight until the last breath escapes my lungs, knowing that no matter what transpires after I am gone, I fought like hell while I was here.
Right now, my 340 million fellow passengers and I may or may not be pressed up against our premature end, but we are surely finding out we are not as invincible as our mythology has always convinced us we are. Back in November, the iceberg breached our hull, and the damage may indeed prove fatal.
But regardless of how our national story plays out from this disorienting, terrifying season onward, we are each finding out who we will be when chaos descends, when danger visits, and when the reality of our destruction is more possible than it’s ever been.
Whoever we are at our core is being revealed.
Sink or swim, may we be the best of ourselves now, America.
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