“Titanic.” We’ve all seen it and enjoyed watching the ill-fated love affair between Rose and Jack develop during the course of an over-length movie. We watched Rose grapple with the tough decisions between living up to others’ expectations and following her heart. We rooted Rose on as she decided to spurn her high-society fiancé and defy her mother to be with her true love. And, in a true Hollywood twist of fate (spoiler alert!), we watched in horror as Rose’s happiness is shattered when Jack slowly sinks to the bottom of the ocean.
However, the most compelling scene of the movie takes place at the very end, when the camera pans Rose’s room and we see that, after she survived the Titanic and lost the love of her life, Rose went on to live a full life. She married and had children, who gave her beautiful grandchildren. She learned to ride a horse even though Jack was not there to teach her. And Rose likely refined her spitting technique to be truly award worthy (and note, we did not say “like a man”). In other words, Rose experienced a number of highs and lows in her life. She faced many difficult decisions and things didn’t always work out the way she expected or wanted, but she kept moving forward.
