Woman who lost son, husband on Titanic submersible shares lessons on grief

The wife and mother of two people who died on the Titanic submersible is sharing what she's learned about grief and life after loss.

Christine Dawood's husband Shahzada and 19-year-old son Suleman died in June 2023 alongside three others aboard OceanGate's Titan , as it imploded while attempting to dive to the Titanic wreckage site .

Now, almost three years later, she's opening up in an interview with The Guardian , including how it felt "like an avalanche" when she heard the news that the Titan had officially gone missing.

"You see it coming. This is it, I'm going to be hit. But you're on a cliff, so where can you go? I had to make a conscious choice. I knew I couldn't let the emotions come," she said. "So, I grew wings, I flew away in my mind. That's how I saved myself from the avalanche."

Grief  is different for everyone, experts say, and the trauma of an unexpected death only compounds that grief.

"Sudden loss can be more shocking and people can feel less 'prepared' than they might with expected loss," licensed psychologist  Shavonne Moore-Lobban previously told USA TODAY . "However, it is still hard to prepare for anything that is life-altering, whether a person knew it was coming."

Dawood, a psychologist herself who has written a book about the ordeal, said she takes comfort in knowing they went quickly.

"I knew Shahzada and Suleman didn't even know about it. One moment they were there and the next they weren't," she said. "Knowing they didn't suffer has been so important. They're gone, but the way they went does somehow make it easier."

Still, the grief comes. Dawood said she's gone through paralyzing panic attacks and intense therapy.

“I have learned to give the grief attention,” she said, adding both her son's room and husband's study remain how they left them. “I go into Suleman’s room. Sometimes I find the cat sleeping on his pillow and I sit on the bed and let the grief come. And after a while I can put the grief away until the next time it gets too much."

Dawood said she's worked a lot on her grief for Suleman but is only now starting to grieve for her husband.

"Publicly they are always put together, but they are two different relationships. Two very different pains," she explained.

It's normal for behaviors around  grief  to vary among individuals and within family units.

"How people grieve is influenced by the relationship they had with the person they lost, also what our religion taught us, what our culture taught us and what our family taught us," grief expert David Kessler previously told USA TODAY .

Dawood is also keeping the memories of her loved ones alive in her home, including displaying a 9,090-piece Lego model of the Titanic built by her son.

"People are always a bit shocked to see it," she said. "But what was I going to do? Break it up? Hide it away? Suleman put all those hours in. He’d been fascinated with the Titanic since we went to a huge exhibition when we lived in Singapore."

Yet some interactions still set her back.

“It’s the normal questions that people ask that are still the most difficult,” she said, “Like, ‘Do you have children?’ That is the most dreaded question. I knew it would come, but it constantly takes me off guard. What do I say? I have two children but … if I say that, then they ask, ‘What does your older one do?’ So now I avoid saying children. I just say I have a daughter. I’m not lying, but it’s what I choose to say.”

There is no exact timeline or limit to grief, Moore-Lobban added.

"Because it is a cycle or process, it will continue as long as it needs to for the person who is experiencing it," she said.

Contributing: David Oliver, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mom who lost family on Titanic submersible shares lessons on grief