“I never want to hear that sentence again”: widow and mother of Titan victims says to Pizza Hawaii “a real sacrilege”: Italy wants its kitchen protected by UNESCO

Christine Dawood wears black. The silence weighs heavily, but she still talks to BBC journalist Nomia Iqbal about very emotional subjects. Iqbal starts with the hardest of all questions: “Christine, can I ask how you feel?” She replies:

Christine Dawood looks at the ground, sometimes into the void. She searches for words, sighs, stutters a little, but she always answers the journalist. She tells how the moment went when communication with the Titan was lost:

Then she adds:

She continues that the members of the expedition team have promised that they will take off again. That it is “nothing unusual” to lose communication with a vehicle.

Christine Dawood speaks of hope because everyone believed the Titan would come back to the surface. She also explains that in such expeditions there is a deadline for a lost submarine to surface: 96 hours, which is four days. Then comes the catastrophe. They wouldn’t come back.

When Christine talks about her son and her husband, she uses the present tense as if her death were just an illusion. In a trembling voice, Christine calls her daughter, 17-year-old Alina, “An incredible young woman.” She was also on the ship. “She only lost hope when they found the rubble,” says the mother. Of her late husband she says:

She tells about her son who disappeared with his father. He was excited about the idea of ​​breaking the Rubik’s Cube record, “which he took with him everywhere,” says his mother, smiling sadly.

In fact, Suleman should not have been on the Titan at all, as they learn during the interview. Christine actually wanted to accompany her husband. When the dive was postponed due to the corona pandemic, the son asked to take her place. The journalist asks: “How do you deal with it?” The widow replies:

She contradicts her sister-in-law’s statement, saying her son “absolutely” wanted to dive on the Titanic with his father.

Finally, the mother spoke about the abdication, which took place in a private circle. “A beautiful moment,” she said. What is the next step? She doesn’t know. After a long silence, Christine finally replies that she and her daughter Alina will continue her husband’s work. That’s how they want to remember him. They also took on the challenge of learning how to solve the Rubik’s Cube for Suleman. His record was 12 seconds.

(sia)