Boston Spring 2013 4/24/2013
Much of life is referenced through tragedy. We often use it as a time keeper; this happening before or after some terrible event occurred. “I remember where I was when the Challenger exploded,… when the first tower was struck…, when the backpacks blew up.” We can mark periods in our life through these events and they in turn can give us pause to rethink what is truly important. When the Newtown shooting occurred last December I was at the mall with my boys having their first Santa photo taken. A wonderful memory for me but how can I ever really look at that sweet picture and not recall the horror of the day?
Tragedy can serve to motivate us to new heights or can bring us down to troublesome lows. Tragedy is unavoidable in life. Try as we might we cannot be naive enough to think we can go through life without some kind of tragedy bestowed on us and worse on those we love. We will lose our parents and even friends in our lifetime. This will bring us sadness, but it is not tragic. Hurt to others by unnatural and evil forces, that is tragic. This past week was tragic.
Attending the marathon is almost a required activity for those who reside or work in Boston. The race is the unofficial beginning of spring. Now, it is impossible to live here in the greater Boston area and not know someone affected by the events of the last week. I know runners and watchers of the race. I know a family who lives so near to the Watertown gun battle they had to flee from their home in the middle of the night carrying their two children. Another friend of mine lives just a block from the carjacking and murder at MIT. I worked for almost a decade in the high school attended by the two individuals who appear responsible. I know the students, staff, and families who are trying to come to terms with the person they thought they knew and the persons they apparently were/are. Worst of all, I know people who are hurt, some with minor hurts, some with hurts so enormous there will be major alterations to their lives.. The fingers of this tragedy are long and crooked with painful thorns coming out all around. You cannot escape the tragedy here; you can only hope to climb up from its depths.
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Help a couple deeply affected by the Boston Marathon Bombings.
Click photo below for their story. |
It is unimaginable to think of great harm coming to your child. When we first hold them as an infant we dream for them all the positive, bright and shiny thoughts we can. Never for a moment would we stop and think of a future altered by such terrorizing, thoughtless, and cowardliness acts of others. Never would we envision the events of this past week and how so many, adults and children, lost pieces of themselves; physically, mentally, or both. At any age, you are still someone’s child, someone who held the promise of a bright tomorrow for your family, someone to whom all the goodness that could be mustered was sent. Someone who will need great care in their recovery.
The individuals who were there at the marathon this past week have become unwilling participants in a chapter in our collective histories. I doubt any of them are pleased to be included in this narrative and it could just as easily been any one of us. The story of course does not end with the capture of suspect number two. It will go on for years and years in physical and occupational therapy rooms, counseling offices, and in private homes. Communities must deal with their collective PTSD and look to each other to find reassurance and refocus on the regular activities of everyday live. But as the damage sets in, individuals and families will have to redefine who they are. They will have to rewrite their future narrative. A future that without question will be tough, but not impossible, and not void of the happiness they certainly deserve.
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Copyright 2013 Motherhood Uncorked
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Links are just fine, though.
Please do not copy or reproduce without permission.
Links are just fine, though.