I have chosen this life, living long distances away from my family because I love cruising and the Caribbean. I'm kind of a roamer at heart. This in no way decreases the attachment I feel to my family or the place I was born and raised. In fact, it rather elevates it; visits with them always seem to end too soon.
The Boston Marathon was run yesterday, Patriots' Day, a holiday in Massachusetts commemorating the battles of Lexington and Concord, towns just a few miles from Boston. These were the first battles of the revolutionary war that led to American independence, in which Boston played an vital role. Though the battles occurred on April 19th, the holiday is now celebrated on the third Monday in April, highlighted by a home game by the Red Sox at Fenway Park and, of course, the marathon.
Unfortunately, someone decided to explode two bombs during yesterday's marathon. Several are dead, and over 100 wounded. The bombs were along the race route, within sight of the finish line. It's a beautiful area, with the Boston Public Library, Trinity Church, and Copley Square.
The violence of the act really hit me after talking with one of my sisters, who assured me that the family was all right. She, however, had a friend who had taken in the Sox game with his son, and they were on the way to watch the marathon when the explosions occurred. They apparently heard them, and immediately headed out of town. Thank God they weren't closer. Seeing online the locations of the explosions, I realized that we have photos of that area that I took a couple of years ago when Chris and I did a nice long walk from Boston Common to Cambridge, stopping at the BPL and admiring the neat old buildings across the street. Those buildings probably had their windows shattered yesterday.
I know that horrific events occur all over the world, many larger and bloodier than this bombing. In war zones, people live with this violence all the time. But this one hit so close to home, it really startled me, from thousands of miles away. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who suffered harm from this attack.
Hi Anne, this is the friend of your sister who was about a block from the explosion with my son as you reference above. Ironically though we do not live on a boat in the Caribbean as you, we too chose a different life by moving to Martha's Vineyard about 10 months ago. Thanks for your thoughts, all turned out well for us, though quite a bit shaken that day. It does go to show is that the world is a scary place and unless we bury our heads in the sand we will always face these challenges. Bostonians like most people of the U.S., do not bury our heads easily and will never give in to the cowards who try and shake our resolve and freedoms.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more on your thoughts about family and places you lived previously as we too have an attachment with our previous stops along our life's journey and love connecting with family and friends no matter where we live, including your sister and her family who we remain close friends with (our kids are friends as well).
Enjoy your journey!
David
My brother-in-law and my nephew were running the Boston marathon this year. We heard the news and tried to text my sister to check to see if everyone was all OK. My family were in lock down for a few hours but luckily my sister was able to get a message out that they were all OK. They are the fortunate ones. They also have decided that this was not going to deter them from trying out for the marathon again next year. As they said it was difficult to go from celebrating one minute to a feeling of horror the next - it is always difficult when we live a life so far from home, but thankfully with technology we were able to reassure ourselves after some time that all were OK.
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