They Saw Me...

They saw me...

I’m do not like the water I kept reassuring my friends and they begged me to take a cruise with them for my big “Over the hill” birthday. No, I repeated over and over again until my face turned red. But we’ve already purchased the package and it’s to your favorite place, my cousin exclaimed in excitement. Plus, are you the one that always says, you only live once, she reminded me as if I really wanted to hear that at this point. With a knot in my throat and an unsettling in my stomach, I quickly said okay, okay before I could change my mind. But we have to have an inside cabin and I’m not stepping out on deck until we reach our destination. You guys know how hydrophobic I am. They all just came in for the group hug as if I hadn’t said anything. But my heart was saying something different.

Finally, the big day was here. We had all arrived at the port ready to embark on the trip of a lifetime. I looked up and saw the humongous ship. Immediately I thought of the beautiful and mighty Titanic. How something so marvelous could be so intimidating to me. As I cleared the picture of people drowning and the ship sinking out of my head, I looked at the smiles on my cousin and friend’s faces. They had finally managed to get me on a cruise. Mind you, my girls had been taking yearly destination cruises for the past 30 years, while I chose to fly to our destinations. You see, I’m the hydrophobic one of the group, almost drowning when I was a young teen from teens playing around at my 13th birthday pool party. My father refused to talk about that day until the day he passed away so I still don’t quite remember what happened. I know one thing, I do know how to swim but only if I have to. We settled in our cabin rooms. I was still a bit nervous but I was a team player. We were called to dinner and dancing and yet I managed not to look out at the big, blue, calm ocean. Yet somehow I knew, this was not going to end well.

After dinner, of which I was able to sit at the Captain’s table, along with a couple that was celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, I was given a birthday celebration and my favorite entertainer was there. It was actually an impersonator. Yes, my husband in my head for over 40 years, the one and only, the man with a symbol for his name. Mr. Purple Rain impersonator himself...My name is Prince.

The party is over, we are going back to our cabins when we hear a loud cracking noise, and the words, “All hands man your lifeboats and life vests, all hands man your lifeboats and life vests.” The ship had suffered faulty wiring and caught on fire. We were a floating fireball in the middle of the ocean. I immediately think to myself is this the gut feeling I had? Was I wrong for not wanting to get on this ship? But I knew one thing for sure, I am a fighter, I am a survivor. I didn’t survive cancer to die like this. I told my cousin, we are not going out like this, come on follow me.

So we all go to the exits and I do what I said I would not do...go out on deck! I started looking for the lifeboats and the crew and we started helping them get passengers into the lifeboats. Before I knew it there was no room left for us. But the captain had been observing my actions and decided that we could take his lifeboat with him and we were all safely away from fiery ship. It was burning uncontrollably and the captain had assured us that he had made “mayday” calls to surrounding shops for help and help was on the way. We floated for what seemed like forever and ended up on a deserted island and low and behold day by day passengers died off, until there was only me left.

Finally, one day while I was on the beach there came a ship, I had a fire going and I was burning what I could to make sure the smoke was as thick as a forest fire. It came within a mile of the shore. I waited and waited, but I was too frail to swim to the safety of the ship and I had burned all of the lifeboats to keep warm and cook. Right before I fainted to my demise, I noticed the ship leaving and floating further and further away until I could see it gleaming like a dot in the sun on the horizon.

A day later, to my surprise, I had survived, because someone saw the smoke, paddled over in a lifeboat, found me and away I went in that ship on the horizon.