Monday to Tuesday

This will be long, and for that I apologize - this post is more for me than for you.  It's a space for me to begin to process.  To begin to put words to paper - to even figure out what I need to process of these events of the day - as I remember them.  Let me be clear - it is my story NOT the story of the day.  The story of the day is so much bigger, with different flavors, angles, colors and degrees than mine.  So here you go - this is just my story.

7:25 am - I left the house yesterday morning - Jon gave me a ride to the T, I told them I loved them, and headed downtown to volunteer for the marathon.  I was excited - this was year 5 volunteering, and so I knew it was going to be an exhausting, but exciting day.  I was nervous - this was the longest time (8+ hrs) that I had left S, since he was born - but excited that he and daddy would get quality time.  And I LOVE volunteering at the marathon!  There is absolutely nothing like it - the energy, the excitement, the joy-and-or-heartbreak, and the people - runners are a unique, weird, crazy breed, but Lord help me, I am one, and I love them.

8 am - I arrived at the finish line and begin orientation

8:50 am - Jon texts to tell me that S has peed all over himself, Jon, the changing table, and the wall.  We both find it moderately amusing, although me, far more so.  It's the first time in months.

9:17 am - We take pictures at the finish line, as we listen to the air gun sound off the wheelchairs in Hopkinton, and the clock begins to count the official time.

9:30 am - We begin bagging 30,000 bags of food for hungry exhausted runners - it's an exciting station, because we're less than a block from the finish line - we can see the bridge and the line from where we are, and the hum and buzz of excitement are already beginning.

10:25 am - I get excused from bagging food, so that I can pump breast milk for my son.  I end up sitting on the floor, in the entryway to the ladies room, attempting to be modest by semi-hiding behind a trashcan.  It does not work.  I decide that it is next to impossible to modestly express milk in public places.  I get tangled in my jacket at least 5 different ways, flash at least 4 people, and barely make it through the whole process with any shard of dignity.  All this on the floor, behind a trashcan.  I consider how funny this whole situation is, and how much I will enjoy relating it later.

12:15 pm(ish) - runners begin to finish, finish line area begins to get busy.  The runners are smiling, most of them happy with their times.  The wind is cold, and they're shivering.  Sore.  Limping.  Hurting.  Falling.  But they've made it.  Energy is high.  Most are happy.  They all want bananas.  :)

2:20 pm - I need to pump again, and can't get out of the runners chute - I attempt to do so behind a garbage truck, again tangled in said jacket, and then make eye contact with one of my former students and decide this is a bad idea/next to impossible to do so modestly.  I will just wait until I leave at 3.

2:42 pm - check the time, and consider leaving early, pumping first, and then going home.  Decide to grit through it and stay until 3pm.  The runners are 5-10 wide, cold, and the chute is packed.

2:47 pm (by my clock) - first explosion, less than 30 seconds later, second explosion.  We see it - the big cloud of grey white smoke.  We feel it.  We hear it.  

Bear in mind, that the runners are 5-10 wide, and solidly packed in the chute.  In our area alone, there were hundreds, and thousands.  And yet, as a unified field, when the first explosion sounds, the area goes silent, and every head turns toward it.  Then there is noise, questions, chatter, confusion. "I think it might be a transformer again - remember how that happened last summer and knocked out all the power?" Then the second explosion.  "I think it was on the green line T - is that two stations?  Bomb?" Someone yells, "RUN." Panicked, stiff, limping, shivering runners coax sore muscles into action. 

Someone official yells for us not to panic.  The crowd slows.  Some walk, some run. But there is a momentary pause in the panic.  I return to passing out food bags.  "No, I don't know what it was... no, I don't think it was planned.  Someone is saying bombs, but we don't know."  No one knows.  I call Jon to tell him to turn on the news, I'm okay, but something is wrong - can he find out what's wrong.  Then, a roar, rumbling, movement of hundreds of people moving.  I wonder if it's the explosion of a moving train beneath the ground, under our feet.  Someone official yells that we need to clear out.  Now.  And the crowd surges forward.  I run.  I notice my phone has fallen out of my pocket, and turn back with panicked expression, trying to decide if I should go back to get it.  All I can see is panicked faces and people running.  Some running towards the explosions.  Some running away.  Limping.  Trying to make phone calls.  I leave it behind and keep running, jumping the fence out of the chute with a grandmother trying to find her family.  Two blocks away, I realize that I'm still carrying three food bags that I had been handing out.  I put them down, and keep moving.  

I am afraid, yes.  But all I can think is that I just want to get home to Jon and S.  To let them know that I'm okay.  "I just want to f**ing be home. I want to hold my baby and be held by my husband."  I am not courageous.  I do not think about staying or helping.  Until I get home and start the guilt-inducing thought-spiral of shoulda coulda woulda.  But let's be honest, this is not a heroic story, a servants story, or even a compassionate story - although I could tell you those or try to spin this as such.  That would be false, and I promised you honesty, even when ugly. It's just my story.  And all I could think of was being home with my family.  And telling them that I loved them.  And so I ran home.

There are sirens everywhere.  Police, ambulance, SWAT team, fire trucks.  Everywhere.  And then there's the "repent or go to hell" truck.  Next to the SWAT truck.  I curse.  And sirens everywhere.  Everyone on their cell phones.  Looking for family members.  Moving.  Confused.  No one knows what has happened.  But everyone knows that something is wrong.  Out-of-towners are consulting maps - no one knows where they are.  They cross streets in front of sirens, not even looking.  Everyone is confused.  Moving.  The sirens aren't just heading for Copley square.  They're heading to all the transit stations as well.  Everyone is on their cell phones.  No one can get a call out.

It's not a sense of mass panic; just confusion.  No one knows what has happened/is happening.  And very few people know where they are.   We stop in front of a store that has the news on, myself and 15 strangers, circling the windows - trying to figure out what happened.  The news doesn't know anything either.  They just keep showing the same picture.

I run into an older woman who wants to know what happened - her daughter-in-law called in a panic.  I tell her I don't know, and I ask if I can use her cell phone to call my husband.  She asks if its long-distance.  I smile, and say "Don't worry about it.  Everything will be okay.  Don't worry." I pass a woman - a girl, really, crying on the street, on her phone.  "I can't look at the pictures anymore.  There's so much blood everywhere.  And body parts.  I feel like I'm going to be sick.  There's blood everywhere."

I've walked the mile and a half now, to the station which will get me to the other side of the water - every station I've passed so far has at least 2 squad cars and armed guards at the gates.  Some are closed.  This one looks completely normal.  I get on the train, with only 7 people in the car.  Two finishers, 2 strangers, and a few family members.  One finisher makes small talk with me - I'm still wearing my credentials and gear.  He doesn't know yet.  I can't be the one to tell him.  I don't know anything either.  

On the other side of the water, I get out and walk home.  I don't want to stay underground - because I don't know.  No one knows.  

4:30 pm - I get home, and sob into Jon's arms.  I hold my son and cry.  And I cry.  And cry.  And cry.  And don't let go of either of them.  Texts, voicemails, facebook messages.  Yes, I'm fine.  Yes, we're fine. We begin to watch the news. And then I begin to know what I didn't know earlier.  People are dead.  Lots of people are injured.  And they say its a bomb.  Two bombs.  And they don't know how many more.

All I can think about is how badly I need to pump.  How I need to find my cell phone (a random stranger picked it up).  And how much I love my husband and my son.  I wander around our house in a daze.  They tell me this is shock, distancing, mental protection and shutdown.      Then guilt kicks in - I should have - I could have - I would have - I should have.  But I didn't.  Maybe it was fear that made me run home.  I think it was some combination of fear and love - who knows how the parts equalized - I'd like to think it was mostly love. 

And here I am now.  It's the next day - and I need to process.  But I don't know what to process.   Lord have mercy.  Jesus have mercy.  Lord have mercy.  It's wrong.  It's messed up. But it's surreal.  It don't fully resonate or make sense. I was there.  I saw it. But I didn't see.  I was a block away.  But I live here.  This is my city.  Those were my places.  My people.  My marathon.  It feels foreign.  Yet real.  And surreal.    I am not angry.  But I am angry.  I don't feel.  But I do. I am shocked by the events of the day.  But I'm not shocked by the heinous nature of the crime or the brutality. I am not scared.  I don't worry that there will be more. I am grieving for it all, even though that isn't always emotionally evoked for me.  I am grieving for myself, my friends, and this city - the loss of innocence and the loss of a sense of "safe."  I feel loved by those around us - from as far away as Russia to as near as the next street over from us, in the hundreds of messages we got checking in to make sure we were okay.  We are okay.  But we're not.  

I'm not quite ready to speak in faith, to talk about how good wins over evil, how we will rise again, to speak of how strong Boston's spirit is, to talk about how God will use this situation for good.  I know those things are true.  But I promised you honesty, even when its ugly.  And those are not my words just yet.  But this is what I do know:  we're grieving and that's okay.  We're not alone, and that's a good thing.  Love is a good thing, and it was not absent yesterday.  For every story of hatred, there were many many more of love.  And even when I can't see it yet, I believe and know that God is still good, and is greater than these things.  I know that Love wins.  And so I cling to that, in hope, even in the midst of places like these that run so completely counter to it.  May hope rise.  

You're the God of this City

You're the King of these people

You're the Lord of this nation

You are.

You're the light in this darkness

You're the Hope to the hopeless

You're the Peace to the restless

You are.

For greater things have yet to come

And greater things are still to be done in this City

For greater things have yet to come

And greater things are still to be done in this City

* Chris Tomlin, God of this City