After such a wonderful first day of teaching my Young Authors Workshop to a fabulous group of children, I came home to the devastation that hit our beautiful city today. An amazing family is hosting me for my work up here in Boston this week and it felt good to be with them tonight instead being home alone. All afternoon I worried about my daughter getting home from work. I breathed a sigh of relief when I knew she made it. (She walked and somehow that made me more nervous) We were all pretty shaken by the events of the day so about 6 pm we just turned off the tv and had a peaceful dinner. It wasn’t much past 7:30 and we were all so tired, but it was too early to go to bed. The daughter, a lovely girl named Shira ( beautiful name) suggested a game of Scrabble to keep us up until at least nine. It worked, along with a glass of wine. I don’t think we realized the emotional toll this event took on us. Now, 10 pm, we all retired to our respective rooms to get some much needed rest.
I climbed into bed and the images still float through my mind. After the images comes the same question over and over: why? Once again there are mentally disturbed and unhappy people who can only try to sooth their own suffering by taking others down with them. This time it had nothing to do with guns. What is the common denominator among all the mass killings? Hurt people. Because hurt people, hurt people. Even those that come prowling around our country from other countries are disturbed and hurt in many different ways and they derive some sort of reprieve from mass injury.
Boston is hurting tonight. I’ve lived near this beautiful city for almost four years now and spent a lot of time up here on those very streets. I stood in front of that Walgreens many times. Here in Lexington yesterday and today the celebration of Patriot Day was done with much pomp and circumstance. Yesterday streets were closed for hours as the flags waved in a parade celebrating pride in our land. And today we face devastating destruction that we just don’t understand. But we have been here before, and as awful as it is, it won’t keep the people of this city down for long.
And so, as another day goes by, I sit in quiet prayer for the lives lost and people injured, I admire the resolve in this city that the terrorists will not win, I still, hours later, am trying to absorb fully what took place today, and…I have written – with a very heavy heart.
I’m happy you had a great first day. As for the events of terror, I’m at a loss for words. SAD