The Richest Man

It was supposed to be the trip of a life time. Headlines everywhere had titles alike, "Titanic, The Worlds Largest Liner", "Titanic, The Unsinkable Ship". I had never been more excited in my life and knew this was an opportunity that couldn't be passed up. No one expected the tragedy that was to occur, unaware of the devastation set for the future. The trip of a life time was in the palm of my trembling hand and I took hold of it with the desperate hope for a better life.

"Charlotte! Mama, please- Charlotte, take my hand." We were trying to board the White Liner. I was trying to keep my family in my sight while also watching all of our luggage. My mother was slowing down as the pain in her chest grew; I knew she wouldn't be able to stand for much longer and we needed to get on the ship quickly. Charlotte, my sister, only six years old, kept wandering off, drowning in the large crowds. I felt her small hand slip into my own and was comforted briefly with the knowledge that she was in my grasp now. "Almost there, Mama."

I wasn't poor. I wasn't rich, but I wasn't poor. I lived with my mother and my sister. The man of the house, the provider. My mother was ill and aging quickly, unable to do the things that she could when she was young and high-spirited. I took on that role, the guardian of my sister, my mother's caretaker, the house keeper. The man of the house. I kept my family well fed, well clothed, well cared for. The roof over our heads, I built it. The food on the table, I worked for it. I was not poor. I had to remind myself of this often as we boarded the Titanic and shuffled down the thin corridors, nudging through the large crowds to the small cot that we had purchased for the trip across the sea. It was hardly large enough for one, never mind four. My sister got the top, my mother the bottom and I had the bottom below a man that I didn't speak the same language of. The beds were barely enough to give that high of a title, nothing but a thin mattress on a slat of wood held to the wall. There was a small mirror, a sink and a little desk for us to share. I felt poor. I should feel rich my mother would tell me. I should feel rich, for I was on the unsinkable ship. The worlds largest white liner. Shouldn't I feel rich? I was not poor.

I had been sitting alone on the top deck when the Titanic hit the impossibly large ice burg, my back leaning against the wall in a dark corner where no captain or any other crew members could spot me. I was not allowed to be so high on the ship. I didn't have a high enough class. I was not rich enough. At night it wasn't hard to slip passed the men. I had found this spot the second night on the liner and had been taking advantage of it each night since. The air was bitter against the bare skin on my face and made my hands ache but still I remained in my spot, my feet crossed out in front of me, arms crossed on my chest. The ship lurched as it hit the ice. The metal shrieked. I was one of the first to see. No one was prepared.

Third class, adult male. I didn't have even a slight chance of getting onto a lifeboat. I was trapped. I was trapped on the upper deck of the Titanic with a six-year-old child that had just been woken from her sleep; trapped on the upper deck of the unsinkable ship that was sinking. The air was bitterly cold, even beneath the weight of my jacket, and that was nothing compared to the water that lay below, crashing in waves against the side of the ship, shattering and spilling back into the deep ocean. My stomach turned. My head throbbed. My heart ached. The decision was impulsive. It was my job to keep my sister alive. I had promised. I took her in my arms, told her to hold on as tight as she could and wasted no time. I jumped. Just before we hit the water I took a gasping breath hoping that my lungs could carry enough air to get me back to the surface. I knew that we would sink quickly from the weight of the fall. The life-jackets would bring us up no matter what, but it wouldn't be immediate. When our heads finally came above the water again I inhaled deeply, the temperature of the water shocking my body. It was chaotic. Charlotte was still wrapped tightly around my neck. I was deaf to my surroundings and heard only the heart-retching sobs that my sisters small frame created. I couldn't speak. I couldn't feel. I couldn't even breathe.

Without any thought my arms and legs began to move. We had to get away from the ship before it went down completely. When it did go down it would create a vacuum and pull anything and everything down with it and in order to avoid being sucked into the water vortex I needed to make sure that both Charlotte and myself were as far from the sight as I could possibly force myself to swim. The water was thick. My muscles were tense. I hardly moved and already I was exhausted. My sister kept screaming.

Never before had I been so cold. The water seemed to have soaked down to my bones, freezing my body all the way to the core. My heart thumped heavily against my chest as it desperately fought to keep warm and pumping. The air was so cold that it was hard to take in a breath deep enough to satisfy my lungs. The water was so cold it felt hot, the temperature of it hitting my skin like shards of boiling water. My toes were numb. My lips were blue. It felt like hours of being completely alone. Charlotte had stopped screaming. It was silent. Dead.
I was no longer able to move; I couldn't speak. My sister, asleep in my arms.

I thought back to the night before we were to board the Titanic. I could see her sweet smile. The excitement in her eyes and the joy in her laugh. Charlotte had always been so happy. So full of life. That night I remember her looking up at me from her bed with her head buried deep in her pillow. She grinned her toothless grin at me and told me the words that carried me through till a lifeboat found me. 

"We are rich, Kai," she giggled. 

That phrase meant more than its literal term set. We were rich. Not just in the sense that we had a house or money. We were rich because we had each other. Family is priceless and I was the richest man alive in her sweet blue eyes.

"Yes, Charlie. Yes. We are very rich," I whispered back to her. A smile was carved in my eyes and I pressed my lips to her forehead. "Goodnight, Kid. Sleep tight. We got a big day tomorrow."

Later that night she woke up from a dream that haunted her mind. She fell asleep in my arms. So calm. She was calm now. At peace. Her skin no longer burned from the icy waters. Her heart no longer fought with the excruciating pain of her mother's death that she witnessed first hand. No more fear. No more pain. She was calm.

I was hardly aware of the men that pulled me up into the lifeboat, and still clung tightly to the lifeless form on my chest. I had lost both my mother and my sister and my heart was beginning to fail when they found me. I was poor. I had lost everything. My house, my family, control of my own body. They wrapped me in a blanket and did their best to give me warmth. I knew it was impossible.

I did not survive the sinking of the Titanic. Of the four that were saved I did not make it.

It was, after all, the trip of a lifetime.