Patriots' Day

                Yesterday morning, I was in a really bad mood. I had just spent the whole day Sunday driving up from Pittsburgh for our spur-of-the-moment road trip to the NCAA hockey championship, where my beloved alma mater made history Saturday night. One of our clinic’s offices was closed because it was a state holiday, and because the Boston Marathon runs right past their office every year, which makes it impossible to get patients in and out. As a result, I was exhausted and grumpy that our office was open, and all I wanted to do was skip work, take a nap, and watch the Boston Marathon. Unfortunately (or so I thought), Tom had a mandatory class that day and my office was severely understaffed, so I didn’t have a choice. I’d have to hear about the Marathon from someone else.

                It started out as a hushed conversation: “Did you hear? Was there an explosion?”, then a mad scramble to get onto a news website and figure out what the hell was going on. All Boston news sites were down, the New York Times hadn’t posted anything yet, and our Internet was maddeningly slow. As information started to trickle in, the office got busier. We started getting phone calls from loved ones and trying to call the people we knew were going to the Marathon, but no one’s cell phone was making outgoing calls. Pictures started showing up on news websites, loading halfway, then stopping with little to no explanation as to what they meant. One of my coworkers was on the verge of tears because her wife had planned on going and waiting at the finish line with a friend, and she wasn’t answering her phone. People started packing up to leave early, to beat the rush, to find their families. I fought back tears and continued trying to work, but it just wasn’t happening. I had to move, to do something. I got through to Tom, but Cameo still couldn’t reach her wife. She left early in tears, hoping to find her, but with no real plan in place without knowing where she was.

                My mom begged me not to take the T home. I usually take the Red Line in, which is definitely the most frequently used line for commuters, and since they were still finding suspicious packages, it was clearly a good place to avoid. I wandered around aimlessly by the station, standing outside Mass General Hospital and trying not to cry as shivering runners, wrapped in plastic and looking grim, bustled around me to find their ways out of the area. It was eerily quiet, people hunching over their phones trying to get more news or text a loved one. The only consistent noise came from the sirens.

                I went to an ice cream shop to try to collect my thoughts and figure out how to get home. A cab ride home at rush hour usually takes over an hour; I couldn’t imagine how bad it would be right now. I felt really uncomfortable watching all the runners and spectators pouring into the Red Line trains, and I felt uncertain that it was a good idea to join them. I ordered an Oreo Cake Batter ice cream cone, took two bites, and threw it away. My phone was dying. I was dizzy. I walked out into the bright sunshine and tried to figure out what to do, standing on a concrete island as police cars rushed around me. A couple stood next to me, wrapped in a tight embrace, and as the sirens subsided I heard the man sobbing. “I couldn’t find you, I didn’t know, I was so scared.” They were wearing Marathon shirts and running shorts. And I knew where I had to go.

                I hailed a cab and gave him Tom’s address. He lives across the city, near a lot of Boston’s hospitals, so I figured there had to be a clear route to get there somehow. The cabbie’s meter wasn’t working since I guess they’re synced up wirelessly and nothing wireless was working well. I told him I’d been planning on paying with a credit card and that I only had about $8 in cash. I offered to leave the cab since I clearly didn't have enough money, but he told me he’d get me as close as he could, and that I could pay him whatever I had. The drive was tense. We got rerouted several times from closed streets, or streets blocked by police traffic. We passed one street with ambulances stretched out in a line as far as the eye could see, maybe twenty or more in a row. The driver switched on the radio at one point, and the news said that there had been another bombing at the JFK library-right down the street from my apartment building. I gasped and told the driver that that's where I live, and he shut the radio off. We rode the rest of the way in silence. I got to Tom’s building and waited inside for him to come down. When I saw him-bright blue eyes matching his crisp collared shirt, a grim smile, a soft hello-I burst into tears. What if I’d been in Cameo’s shoes, unable to reach him and terrified with the knowledge that he’d planned to be there? He had the opportunity to work at one of the medical tents at the finish line-what if he hadn’t had class, and he took the day to work at the race, right next to the explosion?  The thoughts are unbearable.

                We sat in front of the news for hours, watching the same footage over and over while speculations and bits of news came in. The JFK explosion was probably just a fire. Police were finding new bombs. Police weren’t finding new bombs. Our friends were okay. Cameo’s wife had just forgotten her phone while she went to do some laundry. There were over 100 injured. One of the dead was an 8-year-old boy.

An 8-year-old boy.

                I lost it. I cried for everything that was and everything that wasn’t, but could have been. I felt anger and confusion and overwhelming sorrow. I felt like the luckiest girl alive. I felt like sleeping for a week.

                Today is another day. I suppose it’s a better one, but the city feels different today. I took the green line into work today and we passed right through Copley Station. It was closed, of course, and the only signs of yesterday were a few abandoned and deflated balloons resting quietly on the floor behind the turnstiles. There were five people on the train at rush hour. Everyone in my office swapped stories and “Did you know?” tidbits. A girl I barely know at work gave everyone she saw a hug. More details have emerged. The injury toll is up to 176, with three dead. The staggering evil that is Westboro Baptist Church is claiming that God sent the bombs to punish us for marriage equality. Can you imagine? A little boy is dead, his six year old sister lost a leg, and his mother is having brain surgery because the people of Massachusetts won’t deny marriage to same sex couples? I keep thinking about Cameo and how panicked and afraid she was that her wife had been hurt or killed, and I know it was a product exactly the same kind of love that I have for Tom, or my mother has for my father. No God I would ever want to believe in would punish that kind of pure love and devotion.

                A lot of the other details have been wonderful. Runners left the race immediately to donate blood to victims. Videos have surfaced of people running towards the blasts to help their fellow men and women, thinking nothing of the danger. Bostonians opened their homes to displaced out-of-towners with nowhere to go. A former Patriots player carried a woman to safety during the mayhem. Pictures of sympathetic banners and lights on buildings and flags at half-mast are covering my Facebook feed.

                This act has officially been branded as terrorism. The bombs were full of nails and ball bearings meant to maim as many as possible, with no regard for who was hurt. Here’s the thing though: I don’t think Boston is terrified. I think Boston is sad, and stunned, and angry. But I also think we’re loving and compassionate and ready to help whoever needs it. How many people run towards the site of multiple bomb blasts seconds after they happen? How many cabbies would maneuver an impossibly chaotic city for eight bucks to get a girl home? How many people would open their homes half-naked, sweaty strangers to keep them safe and warm and rested? I don’t know the answer, but I know that Boston’s got quite a few of each. I’m devastated and desperate for answers, but I also couldn’t be prouder of our collective action on a day named for our country's patriots. All those inspirational quotes people are posting right now have one thing in common: love and compassion have always, and will always win out in times of darkness.