I've heard it said that there are certain events in your life that you remember exactly what you were doing, where you were, and what happened. Most of the time, the example of an event that people remember exactly what happened is the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. The song, "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning", by Alan Jackson, perfectly depicts this concept.
Three years ago, on April 15, 2013, two bombs went off at the end of the Boston Marathon finish line. These bombs were acts of terrorism by two brothers, for no apparent reason, that killed 4 people, and injured over 260 others. Among those who were killed, were a Boston University graduate student, an eight year old boy, and a twenty-nine year old woman, and an MIT officer, Officer Sean Collier; all with an entire life ahead of them.
On that day, I was in the car on my way home from visiting my grandparents for the long weekend. My mother got a call from her mother saying that there had been an explosion at the finish line. We immediately changed the radio station and listened to the events unfold as the second bomb went off. The entire time, we were stunned. Nothing like this had ever happened in Boston before, and to make it worse, we all knew someone who was either running in the race or who was at the finish line cheering runners on. It must have been a relatively short time before we heard back from the people who were there, but it seemed like forever until we got the texts and calls saying, "I am okay."
Fortunately for my family and I, the people we love who were there were all safe. Other families were not so lucky. The City of Boston was rattled hard, but out of the tragedy came a phrase, "Boston Strong."
Boston is strong. Through everything that happened, between repairing the damage of the buildings, supporting the families of those who were injured and killed, and helping each other, we remained resilient. The disaster brought us all closer. The city shut down as we tried to find the culprits of the attack, and we did not stop 'til they were found. Pictures were plastered on everyone's Facebook and Twitter pages and all over the news. People in the area were warned to be on alert until they were found. It wasn't until one of the brothers was found hiding in a boat, with a laser indicating where a bullet would pass through his head, that he surrendered.
At my high school graduation, we were honored to have Carlos Arredondo (many know him as "The man in the cowboy hat") come and speak to us. He taught all of us, in a town not too far from Boston, what it really means to be "Boston Strong". He told us about how he was at the finish line and his first instinct was to help the people around him. He had no idea who any of the people were; however, he did it because it was the right thing to do- to stick together and help others in times of distress and chaos. He could have run away from the scene, but he didn't. He stayed, and continually ran back into the crowd to help anyone he could.
Every year since then, on April 15th I think of the families who were involved, especially of Officer Sean Collier, eight year old Martin Richard, BU graduate student Lu Lingzi, and twenty-nine year old Krystle Campbell. These four people, all so young, all with so much to live for were killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, by two men with no connection whatsoever to them. Since that day, we have continued to run, continued to stay strong and not let things ruin this amazing city of ours. We will continue to run and repair the damage, because we are:
BOSTON STRONG.
