About the Marathon

I want to talk about what happened in Boston a few days ago but I need to revisit some history first.

About 28 years ago I was a 2nd time-around college student living in Wellesley, Massachusetts. The whole Boston Marathon thing was a pretty foreign concept to me and frankly, I didn't get what the fuss was all about.

Wellesley is the halfway point in the Marathon so it's a pretty big deal. I didn't know this when I took my spot along the road to see what the fuss was all about. I remember thinking, "Who were all these people holding out cups of water and orange slices (the real kind, not the sugar kind) to complete strangers running past and why were they doing it? It took me about a half an hour to "get it." The faces on the runners said it all. You could see the months and years of training, the exhaustion, the spirit, their emotions - all laid out in front of God and everybody. It was moving and emotional and pretty soon I was cheering them on, clapping and yelling and jumping up and down with the rest of the spectators. It was the most remarkable display of human athleticism and sheer guts I had ever witnessed. In the years following I was one of those people cutting up oranges and holding out little cups of water, thinking in some way I was "helping" these remarkable people. I wanted to help them, I wanted to encourage them, and selfishly wanted to be a part of such a magnificent spectacle. The Boston Marathon is something you don't know you need to experience but believe me, you do.

Patriot's day is holiday here in Massachusetts. It commemorates the first shots fired in the Revolutionary War, the running of the Boston Marathon (which started in 1897) and since 1959 the home opener of the Boston Red Sox. It is a great day to be "in the city" and thousands of people do just that. The Sox game is timed so that just when the game is done you can meander over to the finish line of the Marathon and soak up some of the color and excitement of the race. It’s a really good day.

So it was with no small amount of horror I watched Monday's events unfold. Living just 40ish miles north of Boston I have stood in those spots along the last few yards of the race. I knew those shops and hotels and the atmosphere of jubilation experienced by hundreds of spectators and runners as they crossed the finish line. The bombing was surreal and numbing, but mostly surreal. I walked around the house thinking it was a gas line that blew or a power breaker that fried, I could not accept the concept of a deliberate bombing.  The reality took me a while to process. Since then I’ve had a knot in my stomach reminiscent of 9/11 when all flights were grounded but in bed at night we could hear the patrol jets flying overhead. Chilling.

While we don’t know who did this or their delusional reasons for doing so, I feel contempt for their reasoning and more importantly,  pity for their wretched and wasted lives. The irreparable damage evident in the grieving families, the many amputees, dismembered, and otherwise injured victims is cause for righteous anger, but  I want these murderers to know nothing will be ever be accomplished as a result of their actions.  Other than tighter security, a mere nuisance really, nothing will be moved or changed or recruited for their cause.

At next year's Boston Marathon we will still get choked up when we see runners met by a volunteer with one of those space blankets and walked over to have their medal draped around their neck. We will continue to marvel at the medical tents full of doctors and nurses volunteering their time and skills to tend to the blistered feet of the exhausted runners. We will always be filled with the triumph of the human spirit and rejoice for all of us who know acts like this will never extinguish basic human good. We will live our lives stronger, wiser.  Our lives will continue to be rich and full.  The lives of those behind this act, by their own hand, are no longer worth our time or attention  - other than to see justice served.