The grieving wife and mother of the Pakistani tycoon and teen son who were killed in the imploded Titanic submersible tearfully remembered them as “best friends” this week during a virtual memorial service.
“These past few days have been incredibly challenging as a family,” Christine Dawood, wife of Shahzada Dawood and mom of 19-year-old Sulaiman Dawood, said through tears Tuesday. “Emotions from excitement to shock to hope and finally despair and grief.”
Christine was on board the support vessel Polar Prince on June 18 when she got word that communications with the Titan had been lost during its voyage to the famed shipwreck 12,500 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
Speaking about Sulaiman’s birth, she said that when her husband held his son “for the first time, I just knew these two belonged together. His expression was like finding a long-lost companion for adventures to come.
“These two best friends embarked upon this last voyage, their final journey together,” the grieving woman added, Sky News reported.
Christine has told the BBC that she was initially supposed to be on the doomed Titan with her husband before she “stepped back and gave the space to Sulaiman.”
Shahzada’s father, Hussain Dawood, also shed tears at the memorial.
“In such a situation, what does a father say, and a grandfather?” he said. “Both of them [were] so excited. So terribly excited about going to see the Titanic.”
He said his son “not only exhibited a spirit of entrepreneurship but a high spirit of exploration.
“Shahzada and Sulaiman both convinced us that we should go to Antarctica with them this coming winter and how excited they were — an amazing father and son,” the elder Dawood said.
He also remembered the three other explorers who perished in the obliterated vessel – British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, famed Titanic explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, and OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush, 61.
Inam ur Rahman, a close friend of Shahzada, said the tragic dad’s death “leaves a gaping void in my life. I was blown away by his thought process and vision.”
He added that his friend also had “large doses of humility” and “incredible empathy,” according to Kky News.
Rahman also remembered Sulaiman as “a sensible and respectful young man” who “operated at a level way ahead of his age.”
The young man, a student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, had planned a world record attempt to solve a Rubik’s Cube in the ocean depths.
Rahman said he hoped Sulaiman was “in heaven teaching the angels to do a Rubik’s Cube in 15 seconds or under.”
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