Excerpted from The News Tribune 2015/01/22
As the tide slowly removed the water from the graving dock, the Rev. Dr. Frances Lorenz of Tacoma’s Center for Spiritual Living performed a brief blessing.
“We’re putting her to rest with dignity,” she said. “There needs to be a death with dignity.”
She asked that the small group of officials and workers give thanks “to those who loved her.”
“Her time is coming to an end,” Lorenz said.
She offered Anderson four symbolic feathers, and everyone was given a white feather to toss into the receding water.
The Kalakala, Lorenz said, is “a lady way past her prime and ready to die.”
But not quite.
As Lorenz spoke, as the people prayed, as the water receded, the several hundred tons of steel that is the Kalakala hit bottom.
Engineers had expected the boat to keel over, turn half-turtle, slip quietly onto its side.
It would not turn.