Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City
“Ain’t
no love in the heart of the city.” Dzhokar Tsarnaev texted these
words the day he and his brother planted bombs near the finish of the
Boston Marathon. Seldom have more untrue words been written. On a normal day, Boston Marathon evokes many emotions, love
at the top of the list. Love of sport, love of challenge, love of
family, love of significant others, love of the city, love of blood,
sweat, and tears, and the list goes on.
It comes
from those born and raised in Boston to the numerous transplants who
decide to stick around for a year or twenty, to the people like me,
who lived there temporarily….in my case, only two too short years.
While I lived in Boston, Patriot’s Day was hands down my favorite
day of the year. It’s hard not to get swept up in the excitement
of your city hosting one of the world’s premier sporting events and
lining the course to cheer on the participants. This year, one of
my Kingdom Aqua-man buddies was running and had a commercial
detailing his story… I was so excited and proud for Terry and it
made me miss Boston and my friends there more than ever.
Even
after moving back to Texas, my heart leaps in excitement each
Patriot’s Day and this year was no exception. I spent the day
wondering from afar how all of my friends were doing and what stories
would come from the day and missing being involved in the excitement.
Who would PR? Who would
finish? Who would have an inspirational story to tell?
Around 2:15 pm central time, I took a break from work to check in on
Facebook and see who had finished and how things were shaping up.
That’s when I saw it….a simple post from a Texas friend: “oh
no Boston.” My heart went cold as I began searching the Internet
expecting the worst, but hoping for the best. News of the explosions
was starting to make the news bit by bit. It is a sign of the times
when the most up to date information you can get about breaking news
might come from Twitter or Facebook. As the news and day unfolded, I
went through many emotions along with people from around the world.
Pride and overwhelming emotion at the first responders and citizens
who jumped in to help those in need. Pride at Boston’s world class
medical system that leaped into action to get people treatment
without skipping a beat. There is no doubt that such bombings in
many other cities would have left even more chaos and devastation to
the victims. These emotions felt strong, but cannot be a patch
on what the actual people in Boston were feeling. As
the week unfolded into a car chase, a citywide lock down, and finally
the death of one suspect and the capture of another, we all looked on,
riveted. The unavoidable
questions were beginning to
emerge about the suspects'
backgrounds, immigration, how
to spot these things ahead of time, what
went wrong with these boys and how the remaining one should be
punished. My favorite idea came from a fellow runner:
“What
I'd REALLY love to do is make him run the Boston Marathon every day
for the rest of his life, barefoot, without proper chaffing
protection or sunscreen, while all the spectators stone him every
step of the way.”
That would certainly make us all feel better, but could never make up for that day and those still recovering or worse, those who did not have the chance to recover. Regardless of who you are or where you were that day, one thing is certain: Boston is not lacking any love or passion. Registration recently opened for the 2014 Boston race and the eyes of the world will once again be on this city, to see how "the year after" unfolds. I have no doubt that we will see the same passion and love that has always come to this race return with an even greater vigor and adversity will be cast aside.
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