Throughout my time writing for The Crimson White opinions page, I’ve focused quite a bit on the act of remembering and respecting. And while all of the issues I wrote about were and still are close to my heart, today’s remembrance holds a deep-seated personal passion that I’ve had since I was a child.

At 11:45 p.m. on April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean approximately 700 miles east off the coast of Halifax, Canada. The maiden voyage of the fantastic ship made headlines with such phrases as “the unsinkable ship” and “the ship of dreams,” and continued with “Titanic disaster: Great loss of life.”

The tragedy of the Titanic was, seemingly, forever imprinted in the minds of people around the world. However, the loss of this great ship along with the 1,500 people who perished with her was overshadowed by the start of the First World War, the crash of the stock market, and the simple fact that life moves on.

In December 1997, the sinking was brought forcefully back into the public eye with the blockbuster hit Titanic, starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. The historic tragedy was combined with a heartbreaking love story, second only to Romeo and Juliet, and turned into a three hour and fifteen minute movie, the highest grossing film (until Avatar) and one of the most beloved movies in box office history.

And while the movie reminded people, especially teenage girls, of Titanic’s name and while I absolutely adore the overly dramatic, somewhat cliché epic film myself, it, and not the ship, is what’s remembered and honored.

For me, it was at the age of 4 that I was quickly (and strangely) captured by the haunting images that eased across the TV when my mother was watching a documentary. Shots of the hollow remains of a little girl’s china doll, rusting light fixtures barely attached to the ship’s decaying frame, and water-logged boots perfectly laid out in the position they were last worn frightened yet intrigued me at the same time.

Last night, I finished reading my old, beaten up copy of Walter Lord’s “A Night to Remember,” a book I’ve read every year around this time. Though it does not accurately portray the actual sinking of the ship (Lord mentions that the Titanic sank in one piece when it actually cracked in half then went under), it shows the lasting impact, the emotion, the true pain that was felt worldwide for the RMS steamer back in 1955.

But is that emotion and understanding all that lasting now? Researchers have said that within the next 25 to 50 years the Titanic wreckage will collapse in on itself, leaving a rusted pile of unrecognizable debris scattered on the ocean floor.

So who will really remember then when they can’t even remember now?

Those two hours back in 1994 meant more to me than just a simple history lesson on an old, doomed ship. It led to a lifetime of appreciation, education and deep remembrance for how things can go terribly wrong in the seeming blink of an eye.

I turn 20 in May and, just like the 4-year-old clutching my mother’s arm, I still fear the darkness that encompasses the Titanic.

I still feel the horror of its ill-fated voyage.

And I still know that every person deserves respect, honor and remembrance, whether they’re bullied children who take their own lives, a close friend who did the same, an unrelated sister you grew apart from, a young man beaten to death by the racially ignorant, the 6 million Jews and 5 million others killed at the hands of a tyrant or a passenger on a doomed ship. They deserve at the very least one person to stand up and say, “You aren’t gone. Not yet. Because I remember.”

Always remember who you are, love who you’re with and have a fantastic summer break.

Debra Flax is a sophomore majoring in journalism. This is the last column in her series.