Very few events make me speechless. Yesterday, I was at my first day back at work. I wasn’t watching the news or checking twitter. A couple of hours into my shift, I decide to do a quick twitter check (sometimes my app doesn’t let me know if my @ replies come in).
All of the sudden, I’m seeing all these posts about the Boston Marathon. At first, I was confused because I didn’t think a marathon would be on a Monday. So I decided to google it.
And after seeing what I saw, I couldn’t speak for a minute. Finally, I was able to say something to my co-workers and then after a bit I went back to work (I had to). But I kept checking twitter every so often.
I don’t understand why someone would do something so horrible. Finishing a marathon should be a moment of pure joy. Or at least I imagine it would be. I remember how happy I was when I crossed the finish line of the first 5K I did. I was with my dad, and the finish line was at the 50 yard line of the LA Coliseum.
And now that joy has been taken away from so many people.
One of the photos that has stuck with me the most was the one of the runner who fell down very close to the finish line after the first bomb went off. He was almost to the end, and then he was on the ground. I found out that this man was doing his 3rd Boston marathon and after the picture was taken, he crossed the finish line and walked back to his hotel.
That sort of resilience is amazing.
Another thing that was amazing was the incredible outpouring of support from the world. Of course there were the usual posts on twitter and Facebook, but people rushed to donate blood. There were even runners that as soon as the crossed the finish line they went straight to donate. There is a googledoc online where people posted if they had a place that someone could stay. I checked it out, and there are probably at least 1,000 posts of people who put their information out for the world to see just so they could help someone.
Why can’t there be this outpouring of love and support outside of a tragedy?
I read online that people are going to be wearing various race shirts today in support of those in Boston. While I do work in a casual office, a race shirt might be pushing it on a non-Saturday shift. So I went through my dresser and grabbed all the race shirts I had (some I don’t have any more).
I hope that if any of you reading this are in Boston, that you are ok. And also I hope that any of you who have friends in Boston know that they are ok now too (everyone I know is fine).
I don’t have another 5K until next month, but now I’m thinking I want to do something special when I cross the finish line this time to support those who weren’t able to finish the Boston marathon because of this. If any of you have ideas I’d appreciate hearing them.
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