I promise I will post about our hiking adventure from this past weekend, but I am writing with a truly heavy heart this morning and wanted to address those feelings first.
As all of you are probably aware, two bombs wreaked havoc yesterday near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and wounding more than 120, nearly 20 critically. The attacks occurred on Patriot Day, better known as "Marathon Monday." Patriot Day is the most sacred of days in Massachusetts, with the entire state taking a day off from work and school to celebrate the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the start of the Revolutionary War. The day truly does capture the extreme pride of the citizens of Massachusetts, who ring in the day by tuning in to the afternoon Sox game and the running of the Boston Marathon. The bombs that ripped through crowds of innocent bystanders yesterday shattered the sacredness of the day.
On a personal level, while I may not live there anymore, Massachusetts is the state where I grew up, and it will always profoundly affect how I view myself. To illustrate this, my Massachusetts license is due to expire next March, and I would rather not have a valid ID than have to trade in my Massachusetts ID for a Virginia one. They can punch a hole in it, rendering it useless, but I refuse to fork it over. The type of pride instilled in every "Masshole" for our beloved state is something that you can't really put into words. Many people have a strong allegiance to their city, but mine is statewide, and, better said, region-wide.
A very close friend of mine was at the finish yesterday, watching a friend run. Thankfully, through the magic of Facebook, I was able to see that she was fine. However, when I texted her to tell her how glad I was that she was okay, she told me that she had left the blast site mere minutes before the bombs went off, joking that she had wanted ice cream and that that was the first time when her sweet tooth had been legitimately good for her health. I am so grateful that she is okay, but my heart is broken for the families of the dead and of those still fighting for their lives. My thoughts and prayers are with all of them as they struggle to make sense of lives cut short. The fact that an eight year-old child was among the dead is truly sickening. When will our children cease to be targets of acts of violence??? When will parents stop outliving their children?
Having run my first marathon exactly a month ago today, I tried to put myself in the runners' place, that of complete confusion in the face of sheer exhaustion. The fatalistic part of me can't help but think, 'What if that had been my race? What if that had been my parents, my boyfriend and my friends at the finish?' The thought that you could be putting yourself in danger of a terrorist attack just by going out for a run is enough to strike fear into any runner's heart. But runners are a strange breed. We do what we do for reasons that we cannot really explain to anyone else. There were so many stories of heroic runners who, immediately after finishing the race, continued running to Mass General in order to give blood. So, even in the face of this tragedy, I choose to run. I run for Massachusetts, I run for Boston, and I run for the innocent lives lost. That's about the best that any of us can do.
