The Boston Marathon

Art looks across to her sister, Science
Dartmouth Street Entrance
Boston Public Library

Thank you to all who inquired about my safety after yesterday's tragic events. Though I claim to be a Bostonian, (I attended college there, my relatives lived in East Boston) I actually live some 45 miles west of the city. My family and I were not at the event. We are safe.

I had gone out to lunch with a friend and was visiting with her when her husband came to tell us about the tragedy. We turned on the news and like many of you watched events unfold on television. At first, we thought the explosion was caused by a gas main rupture, but when we heard about the second explosion we knew something terrible had happened.

It's so hard to describe feelings after an event like this. Horror, shock, and sadness. This was the area of the city where I spent my Artist Retreat Weekend only a month ago. The events happened around the corner to the right of my photograph. If you have seen photographs or still images of the bleachers, that's where they were located, outside of the "new" (built during the 1970s) library building. This area of the Back Bay is so very familiar to me. I was never afraid to walk the streets in this section of the city during the day or night when I was a student here.

I'm not sure what the perpetrator(s) of this heinous act were trying to accomplish. What message they were trying to send? I know they must be ignorant of history. Of the history of this city of Boston. It's an old city. Boston has witnessed other historic and tragic events. The destruction of the tea, a massacre, the start of a revolution, the birthplace of freedom. They also failed to make a connection to the event they chose to disrupt. The Boston Marathon. This was the 117th running of this race.

The elite runners of this race had already crossed the finish line some three hours before. Those that were crossing the line or on the course on a brilliant, April  mid-afternoon when tragedy struck were running for charities or for a personal best.

The connection these base perpetrators failed to make is the race was not lost. The race is not over.
This is not a race to the swiftest. It's a race of endurance, of heart, of personal best, of pride. It's a race of courage and endurance.

We will bury and mourn the dead, comfort the injured, but life goes on. As it always has, as it should, as it must. We will forget whatever ethnic heritage we might lay claim to. We are not Italian, Irish, African-American, Middle Eastern...We are Bostonians. We are Americans. We will not stand in fear. We will endure.