Not the Boston marathon. OMG. Not 2 explosions during the marathon. This is worse than a Hitchcock nightmare. Oh Holy God. 4 people dead and countless injured. Here, in my cheerful cocky energetic hometown. And the Marathon, started in 1897 with 18 runners, is emblematic of savvy Boston. Now I know the violence in the US is a run-away train. Now I know we Americans are over the top. So. Help. God. So help me God.
Don’t call me naïve if I chortle that Boston is a wonderful city. The health fairs, the new city-wide bicycles, the parks used for skating, baseball, picnics, dogs and Frisbees. We don’t even call it Boston central park: instead it is Boston Public Garden and Boston Commons, because the land is commonwealth to us all. That’s all 4.5 million of us packed into a peninsula beside the Atlantic Ocean.
We have public transit that works dependably; the universities attract a UN rainbow of people; we have specialty health centers like and Dana Farber for cancer. Our exquisite health care system is aided by an amazing high Tech industry, employing lots of software engineers after graduating from a prestigious school like MIT. Tufts, UMass, BU, and Harvard all have strong undergraduate programs and medical/dental schools. We are replete with young people, artsy folks and street jugglers. Mayor Menimo budgets lots of money for youth summer jobs, and with the same fervor doffed to our beloved Bruins/Pats/Celtics, Boston has built up a hefty police force. The Red Sox nation is a unique phenomenon–winning the World Series in 2004 and in 2007– we are proud, wielding our economic hammer with a Bossypants attitude. But we, like other places– Newtown CT; Aurora CO; Virginia Tech and the Twin Towers in NYC—don’t tolerate senseless violence. We are vulnerable now and in tragic mourning. Our town with its Yankee ingenuity has just taken a whuppin’. So we put down the brass and show our tender side: the side that loves Jack/Bobbie/Ted Kennedy, the side that lets OccupyBoston camp out in the middle of the commercial district, the side that treats children suffering from severe burns and cancer, has Spring races for the hungry, for those raped, for our Vets, for AIDS survivors, and for the healthy. We embrace them all.
I’m a nonviolence trainer and a trauma crisis counselor. Please hear our agony-a pain only us who love our Marathon can feel. If you aren’t from Boston, the Marathon is not just a race—it’s a cherished symbol. The Boston Marathon is the world’s oldest annual marathon, with over 500,000 spectators. Amateur and professionals run it, with about 27,000 runners. Massachusetts official nomenclature for this Monday in April is Patriots’ Day, a state holiday so school age children can view the marathon along Commonwealth Ave.
The response to the violence is more telling than the hateful crime. Boston’s real marathon is the healing. Our recovery from fear and reconciling ourselves to each other will take a Herculean effort. Pray for the victims, and pray that our love grows even deeper of this place, for all of us-even the criminals. It’s the legacy of Boston. We will be proud of this Marathon too.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) also has a 24-hour hotline dedicated to providing disaster crisis counseling at 1-800-985-5990 or by texting “TalkWithUs” to 66746. The hotline is open to U.S. residents who are experiencing psychological distress as a result of a natural or man-made disasters, incidents of mass violence or any other disasters.