Missing the Boat

I missed the funeral where a little piece of family history, I'd never heard, surfaced. My uncle, an ex-NYC cop and someone who loves to tell stories as only an Irishman can, tells my sisters and a few cousins "Just think none of us would be here if Grandma hadn't missed the boat." "What are you talking about, we've always heard she met Grandpa on the boat." my sister responds. "Not that boat.  That was the one she finally took, but years earlier she and her sister were coming over to stay with relatives in the states.  They were the oldest of ten children and their parents were very poor.  So tickets were bought and off they went to Cobh (pronounced and also meaning, Cove). The town was in County Cork, a good ways in those days, from their small town of Castlebar in County Mayo. The way your grandmother told me she only remembered not really wanting to go.  They arrived late, due to her successful attempt to miss the boat.  She didn't say what she did and when pressed she always said she couldn't remember.  She only knew she was happy to not be getting on the boat and happier still to be going back home."

It turns out it was a lucky thing as it was April 11, 1912 - the last stop for the Titanic before it headed  out to cross the Atlantic Ocean.  Turns out missing the boat isn't always a bad thing.

Mary