Boston

I used to go to the Red Sox game every Patriots Day in Boston. The game would let out and everybody would drift down to see the finish line of the Boston Marathon. It was always a nice spring day of sports and revelry. It's always been a day you either watched the marathon on TV or frequent a spot along the route. It is all changed now...now we will be watching and hoping nothing ever happens like it did yesterday. I thought my generation grew up in the age of terrorism. My daughters are witnessing terror on what seems a daily basis. I was actually on the way home from Foxwoods and decided around 2:30 to not go through Boston. I went around it and I was on rt. 128 when I heard at 2:50 about some kind of bomb and it's aftermath. I had to get home and turn on the news. I was also waiting for my parents to drop off my daughters at my house. There were some horrific images and recordings of the events coming through at that time. My daughters arrived with my parents. Fresh from a day at the park they were happy but I couldn't turn off the news. I sent them to watch Nickelodeon away from all the graphic images and news. My parents and I and my wife (who started doing housework....she does this when she "Can't control what happens...I have to keep busy") discussed some of the stuff coming on TV. I guess when I was a toddler and my parents went to a European vacation back in '73 or so...there was a terrorist strike at a landmark that they went to visit not long after they had been there. Nobody knows what to say or do...we just have to get through it...again. Later in the evening after trying to keep my daughters from the inevitable I had a conversation with my older daughter who is about to turn 8 in a couple of weeks. I asked her if she knew about what had happened and she just said "...about the bombs going off? yes I know about that...I heard it on the radio and saw some pictures." She was very matter-of-fact and seemed to know what was going on. I asked how she felt about it and the answer made me realize that our kids are almost completely desensitized to the horrific events. She kind of looked at me with some sad eyes and shrugged her shoulders and said "It happens...I guess....there is a lot of bad people that do these things right?" I sort of agreed and let her know that these things that happened yesterday (and the Sandy Hook massacre...which is still foremost on our minds and hers) are not normal. I can't believe it but then again I can believe it...
There is a story about a whole family practically wiped out. A son and daughter hugged their dad who ran the marathon at the finish line. They went back to the sidewalk and the first bomb went off. The eight year old boy died. His sister lost a leg and the mother was in brain surgery this morning still. They are from Dorchester. I also heard two brothers from the town I live in both lost a leg. They were standing next to the 8 year old boy and his family. Their mother also lives in out town. This is hitting home. There is some sort of media blackout happening. There are a ton of press conferences and media coverage sure....but there is still nothing that can be confirmed. God bless everybody in Boston and especially the victims of this cowardly act. The act of terror will not stop us from doing what we do....