🌹 A cinematic peek into my sensitive soul.
A meditation on the film that cracked open my heart at five years old and how it shaped the woman I am today.
Author’s Note
This piece began a few nights ago. I was in bed, doing what I often do to wind down—watching old movie clips on YouTube—when I came across the final scene from the 1997 film classic: Titanic. The one where elder Rose throws her heart back into the ocean.
Something shifted in me as I watched it.
Not just because of the film itself—though it’s a lovely film—but because of what it unlocked in my body, my memory, and my heart. I couldn’t stop weeping. The feeling of remembering was absolutely visceral, down to the marrow.
Suddenly, I was five years old again—sitting beside my godmother Donna, surrounded by teary-eyed women in a dark theater, eyes wide, watching a story I didn’t fully understand, but felt in every cell of my being.
And without really planning to, I started writing.
One memory led to another.
One feeling gave way to a deeper one.
I wrote straight through until midnight—collecting pieces in scenes, quotes, and reflections from my own life and history.
And in that liminal space between recalling and remembering, what unfolded was this reflection—an intimately layered, meditative piece about how Titanic, and especially the story of Rose, shaped the woman I am today.
It taught me—at the tender age of five—what it really means to live a life of truth, freedom, and authenticity.
Even though I finished writing it days ago, a small part of me hesitated to share. It felt tender. Maybe too personal. Maybe too much.
But I remembered—most of the things I write that reach the deepest and help the most are the ones I almost didn’t post.
So here it is—in all its imperfection.
What you’re about to read is the story of a movie, retold through my eyes—and the eyes of my inner little girl. We wrote it together. Some might call it a soul retrieval. That’s what it felt like. In that way, I’m offering you a small peek into my soul. And maybe… a small peek into yours.
This is a cinematic piece. A visual soundtrack to the last 27 years of my life.
So get your headphones. Settle in.
And if it touches even one heart or helps you feel less alone in your own becoming—then it’s done its job.
With all my love,
Leah
Dear reader,
When I was five years old, I spent most of my time with a woman named Donna – a lifelong friend of my parents and one of the three “aunties” who helped raise me so that my mom could work full time. Donna was also my Godmother – a powerful woman of angelic faith who treated every person she met like family.
To illustrate the kind of woman she was, take the fact that I was born on December 23rd – the Eve of Christmas Eve. Nobody celebrated my birthday. I was competing with Jesus for attention. But Aunty always brought me a cake she made herself, along with two gifts: one for my birthday, and one for Christmas. The first was always a porcelain doll or Barbie to add to my collection, and the second, a cross necklace to symbolize our bond. I’m telling you, the woman was an absolute saint. I adored her.
Softhearted, deeply kind, fiercely strong, and nurturing, my aunty raised four children of her own and still had enough room in her heart to mother half the neighborhood –including me. She was my safe space. From the moment I was born, to the day I took my first step on the school bus, aunty was always there. Wherever she went, I did too.
Then one day in 1997, aunty and I went to the movies to see the film: Titanic.
Yes, you read that right. My Godmother took five year old me to see a film that depicts tragedy, passion, romance, sex, coercion, gambling, suicide, violence, and death, all in one long, drawn out, Earth-shattering guttural breath of a oceanic sinking disaster.
But as long as I was with her, I knew everything would be okay.
We’re Women. Our Choices are Never Easy.
Some would say it was inappropriate. Taking me there. Letting me witness such depth at such a young age. But I believe it was one of the most generous things a woman could offer a girl coming of age in a time not so far from the historical Gilded Age in which the movie Titanic was set.
In 1997, only three generations had passed since 1912; a historical time and place shaped by rigid class structures and the forces of patriarchy which systematically silenced, coerced into marriage, sexually suppressed, and limited women in almost every way. Women and girls just like you and me: daughters, moms, sisters, aunts.
Only three generations: your grandmother’s, grandmother’s, grandmother.
This was a time in history when a mother could be forced to sell off a daughter, just to survive. And a daughter forced to disown their own mother to do the same, or else marry an abusive man with total and complete control over her life.
Rose: "It’s so unfair.”
Mother: “Of course it’s unfair. We’re women. Our choices are never easy".
Dangerously Close Proximity to the Edge
To many, Titanic was a movie about romance and falling in love. Yet, if you look with discerning eyes, it was so much more than that. Titanic told the story of a heroine who chose herself against terrible odds. And it was a story that left an emotional imprint on an entire generation of women and girls who saw themselves in Rose’s character.
I was one of those girls...
Who remembers watching it all unfold with wide eyes. Not scared or overwhelmed even in the slightest. Not by the tragedy…the sinking ship…not even by the sight of people drowning. No. What truly scared me was when the beautiful Rose tried to end her own life by jumping off the back of the ship. That’s what nearly did a girl in.
Her silent screams. Her desperation. Her dangerously close proximity to the edge.
Jack: “Don’t do it.”
Rose: “Stay back! Don’t come any closer….I mean it. I’ll let go.”
Jack: “No you won’t.”
Rose: “What do you mean no I won’t? Don’t presume to tell me what I will and will not do! You don’t know me.”
Jack: “You would have done it by now.”
Rose: “You’re distracting me, go away!”
Jack: “I can’t. I’m involved now.”
Desperate for Freedom at Any Cost
Even at such a young age, I sensed and felt Rose’s pain – even if I wasn’t yet old enough to fully understand it. Born sensitive and emotionally gifted, I was already capable of empathizing with complex human emotion. Inside my own little body that day, I felt Rose. The fictional nineteen year old girl – desperate for freedom at any cost.
I picked up on her utter despair. The misery in her body language as she took orders from everyone around her, yet from no one who truly saw or understood her. The dissociation in her facial expression at afternoon tea as she realized freedom might only be found in death. The moment of absolute terror when the man she was to marry flipped a table on her as punishment for daring to put a toe out of line.
Cal: “You will never behave like that again Rose, do you understand?”
[Rose pauses and thinks for a moment]
Rose: “I’m not a foreman in one of your mills that you can command. I’m your fiancé.”
Cal: “MY FIANCE! Yes, you are…and MY WIFE! My wife in practice if not yet by law, so you will honor me. You will honor me the way a wife is required to honor her husband. Because I will not be made a fool, Rose. Is this in any way unclear?”
Rose: [trembling] “No”
Cal: “Good. Excuse me.”
The scene cuts to Rose being strapped into a breathless corset by her maid right before her mother comes in and gives her no choice (see scene above).
Are you starting to feel the desperation?
Seeing It All Through A Child’s Eyes
There I was. Five years old. Seeing it all unfold through the unpretentious, unassuming, wide open eyes of a child.
The absolute terror of a beautiful young woman— the same age as the teenage girl cousins I looked up to—so utterly trapped in a gilded life. It wasn’t just Rose’s beauty, poise, and grace in the face of impossible, terrifying odds that captured my attention and heart.
It was her pure, un-adulterated, raw…courage.
I saw the bravery it took for Rose to find her way back – from the edge of a railing to the fullness of a life lived on her own terms, and finally, to the metaphoric other side—where everything she had lost, and everything gained, could be fully remembered.
And yes, I saw the romantic kiss. Who didn’t? I loved that scene. Still do.
The moment when Rose finally changes her own mind and realizes that she does have a choice. A choice to put herself and her own desires first. Though it appears she’s choosing Jack, and she is, just under the surface we can see that what Rose is really choosing is herself. This scene is such a powerful depiction of choice and defiance of the cultural narrative (“we’re women, our choices are never easy”).
In this moment, Jack helped Rose not just think about freedom, but feel it in her body. He loved her deeply by honoring her choice to leave it all behind, to come back to love, to herself, and learn how to fly at the bow of a doomed ship instead of at the stern of a doomed woman. It wasn’t just about the climactic kiss.
The kiss was just a beautiful way for Rose to say thank you.
Rose: “Hello Jack. I changed my mind.”
Jack: “Now, close your eyes. Go on. Step up. Do you trust me?”
Rose: “I trust you.”
Jack: “Alright. Open your eyes.”
Rose: “I’m flying!”
As all the woman in the theater started crying, including Aunty, little Leah learned that not only could she make her own choices in life, she could trust she would be held.
Finding Answers to Long Lost Questions
This story has stayed with me all my life and showed me how to live.
When we left the theater that day, I remember looking up my teary eyed aunty thinking she was sad and asked her: “Aunty, why didn’t Rose go away with Jack? Didn’t she loved him so much?” She tried to answer me but of course, I didn’t understand. Now I do. Twenty-seven years later. It all came back to me full circle.
Alone in my bedroom at 8:30 on a Wednesday watching the final scene to the Titanic on Youtube. My five year old self present as ever. The two of us weeping sacred tears. Holding each other. Knowing what we’ve just found frozen inside of time and space.
We finally found the answer to our question:
Jack: “Listen Rose. You’re going to get out of here. You’re going to go on. You’re gonna die an old lady, warm in her bed. Not here. Not this night. Not like this. Do you understand me?
Rose: “I can’t feel my body”
Jack: You must promise me that you’ll survive. That you won’t give up. No matter what happens. No matter how hopeless. Promise me now, Rose. And never let go of that promise.”
Rose: “I promise.”
Jack: “…and never let go, Rose”
Rose: “I’ll never let go, Jack. I’ll never let go.”
Making and Keeping Promises
This movie isn’t just about romantic love…it’s about the promises we make.
The one that Rose made to Jack: the one man, the one human…who actually saw her. Who didn’t try to control or coerce her. Didn’t attempt to use her for his own gain. And wanted nothing for her but to live a life of freedom and devotion to her own becoming.
Rose’s promise wasn’t just a goodbye kiss with the man she loved, it was a devotional promise to live absolutely true to herself—to choose her own future, to keep going, to not surrender to the freezing death all around her or to the grief of unspeakable loss.
To survive in the memory and name of a man who saved her and made her promise never to let go of what they had or the future it allowed her to choose.
I was five years old watching this woman rewrite her entire life, from scratch. Looking up at the Statue of Liberty after surviving Titanic and losing the love of her life. Giving herself a new name. Seeing the deep meaning in her life from the final scenes of it.
Attendant: “Can I take your name please, love.”
Rose: “Dawson. Rose Dawson”
Rose: “…and I’ve never spoken of him until now. Not to anyone. Not even your grandfather. A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets. But now you know there was a man named Jack Dawson. And that he saved me. In every way that a person can be saved…he exists now, only in my memory.”
She really never let go. She held on all those years. She kept her promise.
The Battlecry of an Entire Feminine Lineage
Titanic seems like a romance movie on the surface, but if you dive into the deep ocean of a woman’s secret heart, you read a different kind of love story.
You hear the self-love and courage it took for Rose to create a life for herself. You hear the sound of a woman who lived fully despite loss. And underneath all of that still, you hear the battlecry of an entire lineage of women who fulfilled their deepest promises.
Rose is not just a love-struck aristocrat or a damsel in distress—she is a mythic feminine archetype in motion, cycling from Innocent Maiden (caged beauty), to Rebellious Heroine (defiant feminine), to initiated Lover (erotic wild woman), to Wisdom Holder (elder Rose). She shows us the entire arc of a heroic female.
Her character represents:
The fight for freedom of the soul
The power of being truly seen
The promises we make to honor true love
The choice to live fully, even at great cost
The pain and beauty of becoming oneself
Her rebellion isn’t loud—it’s sensitive and embodied: she lets down her hair, makes her own choices, trusts her intuition, makes art, and steps into her full aliveness.
And in doing so, lives up to the meaning of her own name.
In Kate Winslet’s screen test for Titanic, there is a dialogue between her and Jack that didn’t make it into the film. The dialogue starts at 1:50 and ends at 2:30.
Jack: “Just out of curiosity…do you have a name?”
Rose: “Rose. Rose Dewitt Bukater.”
Jack: “Rose…is it short for something?”
Rose: “No, it’s just Rose. A simple little flower without a thought in its head.”
Jack: “No, no. Roses are actually very complex. Have you ever torn one apart? The petals just get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. But it’s still a rose. Anyways, it’s the only flower that will draw blood.”
This dialogue honestly makes me want to change my name. 🌹
Ritual: A Lil’ Sneak Peak Into Your Own Soul
I want to bring you with me into the final moments of the film. The scene I started writing to and that led me to rediscover parts of my own soul. As you watch with me, try to look with a child’s eyes, and notice what comes up for you. I’ve included some reflection questions below to help you process and integrate this scene.
Final Scene Reflections
When older Rose stands at the stern of the ship, holding the Heart of the Ocean in her hand—what do you feel in the movement of her fingers? The look in her eyes? This is a woman near the end of her life.
When the scene cuts to younger Rose in New York, just after surviving the shipwreck, standing on a dock in the pouring rain looking up at the Statue of Liberty—what do you see in her face as she discovers what’s in her pocket?
As she pulls out the necklace, a symbol of Titanic and her past life with her abusive and controlling fiance Cal, what do you imagine she’s thinking?
When elder Rose offers that small smile just before releasing the Heart of the Ocean and watching it sink into the depth, what part of her goes with it? What is it that she’s really releasing to the ocean?
When the camera cuts to Rose resting peacefully in her bed, surrounded by photographs of her full life… what does it say about the woman she became?
When we return to the site of the wreckage, what does it symbolize about healing, loss and grief?
What lesson do we receive about the process of healing as the ship transforms back into its former splendor and glory?
And finally, as Rose’s spirit reunites with Jack in the afterlife, what is the metaphor? What is returned to her beyond just the man she loved?
Share your reflections with me in the comments. I’d love to hear. Or come join us in The Nourished Sensitive Garden for more privacy and presence.
Returning to Our Depths: Emotional Alchemy
What moves me the most about this final scene in Titanic isn’t how it ends, but how it begins. Rose’s soul descending into the depths of her own past, returning to the Titanic itself. The shipwreck. The site of unimaginable tragedy. The place where so many lives were lost—including the man she loved.
It’s a return to the murky shadow. One most of us would like to avoid.
And yet, just as Rose arrives, everything comes alive again. It’s all restored to her, as if none of it ever happened. This is a powerful symbol of what it means to descend into our own darkness and shadow. To return to the grief, the memories, the pain we’ve tried to bury. And to find there, something deeply true, whole, and sacred. Something light and full of joy.
Something worth remembering.
Healing is not just “love and light”. It’s the resolution of old wounds, a deep embodied process of emotional alchemy– the process of turning pain and darkness into purpose and light – only after we feel it, process it, and live it all the way through like Rose did.
Living a Life Of Truth and Authenticity
Every time I witness the panorama of the full and rich life Rose lived I feel absolutely gutted. The truth and wholeness of it all. The memories she carried with her all her life. The photographs of her living true to herself – surrounded by genuine friendship, going on adventures she and Jack spoke of like ice fishing and riding like a cowboy on the beaches of Coney Island. Finally becoming the actress she dreamed of becoming. Standing by the side of a plane, actually learning to fly. She actually did it!
She survived everything working against her, and fulfilled her promise.
She was a woman who said no.
Who lost everything, and walked away.
Who started over, and let herself become new again.
She lived her life without needing permission. Without needing the riches. Without needing anything but her own courage.
Maybe you could say it was just a movie. That it’s not “realistic”.
But tell that to five-year old Leah walking out of that theater and into the rest of her life. Holding the hand of her favorite woman in the world, and carrying inside her little body and soul the memory of a woman who changed everything.
You wouldn’t dare.
A True Story, Based on a True Story
Rose saved me in every way a young girl could be saved. By being an example.
Titanic wasn’t just based on a true story, it became my real life true story.
Each time I found myself trapped in someone else’s version of who I should be. Each time I felt my own light slipping away. Each time I chose my own freedom over comfort and approval. Each time I let go of something precious. People I loved. Each time I forfeited comfort, loyalty, and praise to stay true to myself. I became more like Rose.
From time to time, I think of that little girl in the movie theater, clutching her aunty’s hand, eyes wide not with fear but with recognition and lots and lots of questions. She didn’t yet have the words, but she knew. At five years old, she already knew.
Rose’s love story didn’t just inspire her. It became her.
She was going to be just…like Rose.
See Yourself in This Love Story
Dear reader, perhaps you see yourself in mine and Rose’s story? Maybe you’re sensitive, deep feeling, openhearted, soulful. Longing for something more in a world that would rather you silence yourself than stay true to yourself.
And maybe you’ve also stood at the edge of what felt like an impossible choice. Known the feeling of being trapped in a life that others praised but that never truly fit. Maybe you’ve learned or are learning—through heartbreak, grief, or quiet rebellion—how to reclaim your freedom, values, and authentic sense of self.
If so, this love letter was written for you.
I don’t have all the answers. I’m still living into them myself.
I’m just one among many deep feeling, sensitive, openhearted soulful women who has been told they're too much or not enough nearly every day of her life. And I’m just one woman who keeps the promise everyday, never lets go, and chooses her truth over belonging, aliveness over safety, self over approval.
I don’t know anything really, but I do know this…
True strength and security isn’t found in rejecting our sensitivity. True strength is found in our deepest conviction to stay true to it and never let go.
You are Strong Enough
So, if you wonder if you’re strong enough. If you can do what Rose did. What I’m trying to do. Just know this.
You are.
You always are.
Your strength is inside you and its been there all along.
It’s never too late to start over and work on writing a story that’s fully yours. Not the one they expected of you or the one they wrote for you, but the one your soul remembers. The life that represents what’s really inside the heart of your innermost childlike self.
I truly believe there’s no such thing as too far gone. She’s still in there, I promise. She’s always with you. Her heart does go on. She never let go.
So, if you’re standing at your own metaphorical railing right now—trembling, uncertain, trying to find your way back to yourself from the edge—I hope this reminds you:
You don’t need anyone’s permission. You don’t need a map. You don’t even need a man. All you need is your own courage.
And maybe a hand to hold as you take the next step.
I’m holding mine out to you now.
Because as Jack said…I’m too involved now.
Your friend,
🌹 Leah
PS. If this story stirred something in you… I’d love to hear from you.
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Aw, Leah, I just want to hug you and little you and Rose and your auntie right now. 💜
I love this meditation on life and love that you wrote. It feels so healing just to read it. Now I need to rewatch the movie, which I remember loving. It’s beautiful that rewatching it and writing this article seems to have helped heal your inner child too. 🥰