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Thursday, April 10, 2014

My Images from Boston - A Year Later

Living in the Boston area all you heard and read about the past couple of months is about the survivors, the volunteers, the runners, the bombings, the suspects.... it's been the Boston Marathon every day since the last Boston Marathon. There is no way to avoid it. The media has been all over this story. It's almost been the norm around here. I have been slowly getting used to the whole thing.

But now, with the anniversary of the bombings quickly approaching, the news reports about it have been way to much for me.  Memories from that day are starting to surface at times have been overwhelming. We are all familiar with the images from that day; Jeff Bauman being wheeled away with Carlos Arredondo by his side; the older runner, Bill Iffrig, collapsed when the bombs went off; and the pictures of the three precious lives that were lost that day - Krystle Campbell, Martin William Richard, Lingzi Lu..... God bless them all...

But to me, NO images touch me more than these few I'm about to post for the first time here on my blog:

My two older kids with their friends at the finish line

My youngest sitting patiently waiting for me

My beautiful wife

My parents; 
the first race they've ever come to see run (my nickname is Pete in case you're wondering)

All of them waiting waiting for me to fulfill a life long dream of crossing the Boston Marathon Finish line. All of them there to support  me.... All of them, thanks to the grace of god, safe and sound after the bombings. No one was physically hurt, but all suffered life long effects of sights and sounds witnessed that day.

When I took this picture of the runners stopped before the Mass Ave bridge

I turned around to see this:

This image will forever be in my mind as the moment my heart was broken. My daughter, my wife, my mom & dad in the back ground, my sister in law and my son.... Guilt struck me like a ton of bricks. I remember crying so much after this. I felt like I was to blame for all of this. It was all my fault. It was my fault this all happened to them......
.... as I write this, even a year later, it still makes me feel the same way. I have wiped away plenty of tears tonight. The pictures and emotions have really hit me in a way I knew they would. I'm not surprised. To this day, I still feel guilt for the things that happened that day. I know, I'm not to blame. But I can't help to feel this way.

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With the anniversary of the bombings just around the corner, I felt like like I had to get this out of the way. My blog has always been a great place for my crazy thoughts and this is no different. I needed to get this out there because this is how I felt.

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Only thing left to do now is to cross the finish line. That day will be here soon enough and we can all finally put it behind us and move on.

Counting down the days til Boston.




3 comments:

Beth said...

May you find peace crossing that finish line. I can't even imagine how emotional of a race this will be for you. I'm cheering for you!!

Anonymous said...

pretty nice blog, following :)

Bill Fine said...

you did it, my friend......SO happy for you!!!!