Tell Me A Story

“Grandma, tell me a story,” the little girl pleaded. It was a familiar wish. At the age of six, she was insatiably curious. And her grandma always had the best stories. The best part, she insisted every one was true.

The old woman nodded, settling down into the large easy chair in the living room and brushing her faded gray curls out of her face.

“Alright, little one. Which story would you like to hear?” No matter how many times she told each story, her granddaughter insisted on hearing them again, enraptured upon each retelling. And so, the grandmother never tired of telling them. Perhaps it was what made her become a history teacher so many years ago.

“Oh, the one about that new girl went to the school where you taught. The only dark-skinned girl in the whoooole school. Or actually, maybe the one about the marches in the city. When all the ladies wanted to vote for stuff. No wait! The one about the big war. The first one, not the second.” The little girl was on her knees now, weaving back and forth with excitement as she named her favorites.  

The old woman laughed. “You’ve heard those stories so many times you’d think they happened to you, not me,” she joked. The girl shrugged, undaunted. “What an about an old story, even before those ones?”

“Have I heard this one before?”

Her grandma considered it. “No, I don’t think so. I haven’t told many people this story. It doesn’t have a happy ending,” she warned.

The girl gasped. “A new story? Tell me, please? Pleeeease!” Only this little girl could hear “old story” and think it something new, could know it wouldn’t end happily and thirst for the telling anyway. Her grandma loved that about her most, and it was why she told her stories.

“Okay. This was very long ago, now. I was a young woman. This was before even before the Great War. And I- ”

“Is this your earliest story ever, Grandma?” the girl interrupted, her curiosity getting the best of her.

Her grandma looked at her reproachfully. Interruptions weren’t appreciated once she got started, but after a moment, the look softened. She couldn’t totally fault her granddaughter’s eagerness, especially when she was so young. She’d no doubt have many, many more questions as she got older.

“Nope, not by a long shot,” she promised mysteriously. “I may have been a young women at the time of this story, but by then, I’d already collected more tales than most people will, even if they live for over a hundred years.”

The little girl smiled. “Is that how old you are?” She always asked this at some point during the story. It was the one question the old woman never answered. She just shook her head and took a deep breath to continue.

“So, I was young and eager to see more of the world. I’d already traveled much of what was once known as the Old World, but I hadn’t traveled across the Atlantic, to the Americas, in quite some time. Of course, by this point, the once new, fledgling United States had become one of the most powerful countries in the world. And I was determined to see her most famous city, New York.

“I was living in London, and it was simple to find a ship sailing to New York City. But, you know your grandma. I wasn’t just looking for passage across the ocean, I wanted adventure. I wanted an experience…a story. That is why I booked a ticket on the greatest marvel to yet set sail, a record breaking vessel of luxury and style. Of course, now her fame has rather become infamy, but back then, she was the jewel of Southampton. The Titanic.”

The little girl gasped. Of course, at six, she was a touch too young to have seen the old popular movie, and therefore had no idea just what kind of tragedy her grandma was about to recount. She reacted only to the master storyteller’s anticipatory build and the flourished tone she used to reveal the famous ship’s name.

“And oh, she lived up to her reputation,” the old woman continued. “Just walking up the docks, I could tell she was enormous, bigger than any ship ever built. She was longer than two football fields put together, and taller than a house. And that was only the outside.

“Titanic’s interior was beautiful, everything polished and shining. There was a wide, sweeping staircase that led to the upper decks. Walls were hung with art, every chair was brand new and yet still soft and plushy. Music always seemed to be playing. Even the food was amazing, gourmet for every meal and served on silver and china. It was rightly called the Ship of Dreams.”

She paused, glancing at her granddaughter, whose eyes were as round as saucers. “That sounds so cool,” she exclaimed.

Her grandma smiled, but it was a little sad. “Yes, it really was. Of course, that was only first class, for the richest passengers. The poorer people in second and third class didn’t have quite the same experience. I would guess their journey was much more ordinary than dreamlike. But all classes could agree that their journey on Titanic was bound to be a once in a lifetime trip. And so it would be.”

The girl heard her grandma’s shift in tone and knew that the real excitement was about to begin. Something was about to happen, to change.

“A little ways into our journey across the Atlantic Ocean, the ship ran into some trouble. We were sailing too fast and at night, the weather made it very difficult for the lookouts to see danger when it approached. All at once, there was a very loud grating sound. The whole ship shook. When it stopped, no one knew what was going on. Many of the acquaintances I’d made on the ship were demanding to know if anything was wrong, but the stewards on the first class decks only told us not to worry.

I was told not to worry many times that night, that everything would be okay. Even as the stewards began handing out life vests, they still assured us that it was only a precaution, just in case. No one believed that anything serious could have happened. Because this ship, Titanic, had a single claim to glory above all others. It was believed to be unsinkable.”

The little girl frowned at her grandma’s words. By this point, she had learned many of her grandma’s tells and mannerisms when spinning a story. And with the way she’d just set up the Titanic’s supposed inability to sink, the girl had a feeling it was about to be proven wrong.  

The woman nodded, seeing her granddaughter’s skepticism. “Yes. She wasn’t quite as infallible as advertised. In the middle of that cold night, Titanic began to sink. We’d hit an iceberg. It was honestly terrifying. One moment, no one was talking, no one was telling us anything. And the next, they were dragging the covers off of lifeboats and calling for women and children to come forward. The once quiet night was suddenly full of shouting and panic. Other first class women clutched as many of their possessions as they could, and were often rebuked by members of the crew who were facilitating the evacuation. Others pulled shawls tightly around them beneath their white life vests against the frosty air.

“I hated seeing those left behind, the men, and worse, the poor. First class women and children were boarded into the lifeboats first, and to ensure their comfort and safety, the boats weren’t filled to capacity. The rest had to wait for a turn they didn’t know was never going to come. You see, the ship didn’t have enough lifeboats for everyone. The fear in the eyes of those remaining was clear and vivid.” The old woman shuddered and stopped to check on her granddaughter. The girl was quiet now, not grinning like before. But the eagerness was still there. She’s still want to know what happened next.

“I was loaded into one of the first boats, along with many of the women I’d gotten to know during the journey. Shivering, we were lowered down to the water far below. As we drifted away from the ship, it was already clear she was sitting lower in the water, especially toward the front or bow. It felt like a very long time, sitting in the boat and watching Titanic sink, though it actually took a little over two hours. After a while, no more boats were launched. No more passengers were sent to safety. Then the screaming started. Even far across the water, we could hear them. The ship’s bow was well underwater now, pulling the back end, the stern, up into the air. Small specks flashed against the darkness, people falling from the ship. When the ship’s lights went out, it was harder to see what was happening, but no more difficult to hear. Eventually, the ship was pulled completely straight up in the air and she sank like that. Everyone still left of the ship, most of the passengers, went into the water.”

“Couldn’t any of them swim?” the little girl asked very quietly.

Her grandma looked at her sadly. “I’m sure some could. But there were three problems. First, when such a large object sinks in the water, it kind of pulls everything nearby down with it. That made it very hard for the people in the water to keep their heads above the surface. Then, there were many more who never made it off the ship when she sank. They were trapped inside. And finally, the water was icy cold. So many people didn’t drown because they couldn’t swim or were pulled under. They froze to death.”

“I wanted to go back,” she told her granddaughter. But the statement felt hollow in the face of the many years that had passed since, and the many lives cut short while hers went on. “We had some room in our lifeboat and I begged the others to see if we could rescue survivors. They worried we’d be overwhelmed by too many people desperate to live, causing the whole lifeboat to tip. They didn’t want to risk their own lives to save others. It would have made little difference, our one boat, anyway, but hearing the silence spread across the water was somehow worse than the screams.” The grandmother took a deep, steadying breath.

“We waited for many hours in the lifeboat before another ship that had been sailing nearby, came into view. I was stiff from the cold, but doing better than some of the older women and youngest children. I stood, waving my arms above my head so that they’d see us. The ship was called the Carpathia. Her officers spotted many of the boats holding survivors. We were quickly brought aboard, given blankets, and asked our names. A few other men searched among the bodies still in the water for survivors. By that point, they didn’t find any. I spent the rest of the voyage to America on the Carpathia. Many wanted to hear what happened, but I let others tell the story. Unlike me, I know, but this was one story I decided to hold onto for a while. Until the time for telling was right.”

The little girl looked up. “Like right now?” Her grandma smiled and nodded. They were both quiet for several minutes.

“I’m sure you have questions,” her grandma eventually said gently. She wondered if maybe this story was a little too dark for the six-year-old.

At first, the girl didn’t speak. She ordered her thoughts. Then, “I’m sorry Grandma, that you had to be there.”

The woman shrugged. “It wasn’t my first choice. But I was very, very lucky. Most of my fellow passengers were not,” she said gravely. Then she made her voice lighter. “Still, I was happy to finally see New York, even if in my daydreams, spotting the Statue of Liberty for the first time was a much happier occasion than shivering on the deck of Carpathia, haunted by the souls of those who didn’t make it. And in America, I met your grandpa, which made everything a little better. If I hadn’t come over, well, maybe you’d never been born.” She poked her granddaughter’s stomach good-naturedly and the little girl giggled softly, proving the resilience of children.

She didn’t wait long before asking her questions. “Was that the last time you went on a boat?” The old woman was sympathetic, thinking perhaps that had their places been reversed, the girl would be too frightened to ever travel by boat again. However, she quickly decided that despite the girl’s fear, that wouldn’t be true. Her granddaughter was far too brave to let a touch of fear stop her.

“No. It was a many years before I felt ready to sail on a ship again, but when I served as a nurse during both World Wars, I spent time on many boats. In the Second War, I was actually a member of the Navy.”

The little girl absorbed this information. “Was that your first time on a boat?”

The old woman grinned now, despite the somber story, seeing where her granddaughter’s line of questioning was going, always trying to learn more about her past. “No, no. I’d sailed on many ships before that fateful voyage. All around the Mediterranean, the Pacific near Asia, the Caribbean. In fact, long before steamships like Titanic and Carpathia, I journeyed on wooden ships with big canvas sails that used the wind to move. Once, we were even attacked by a famous pirate, Edward Teach. But—“

“That’s a story for another time,” the little girl picked up knowingly where her grandmother had left off. This was often how their story time went. “Do you think you will ever run out of stories to tell me, Grandma?” the girl wondered.

“Hmm, I shouldn’t think so. I have many, many more. I’ve seen a lot in my long life, little one. More than you might believe. But they don’t all have happy endings. However, if you still want to hear them, I will always have a story to tell you. Deal?”

The little girl grinned. “Deal!”