Five Days in April

It all began five days ago, half of us hunkered to work, grumbling slightly, dealing with our Monday blues, the other half of us, jumped up at the crack of dawn, pulled on our running shorts, and hit the Boston Marathon. The Boston Marathon held on Patriot’s Day every year is the oldest annual marathon in the whole world. To marathoners everywhere, the Boston Marathon is a sign of strength, regularity and endurance, for Bostonians, the marathon is a sign of hope, turn of change, that spring is around the corner, a sign of new beginnings and a new season of Red Sox games. For everybody with the day off, it’s a day to watch the marathon in Boston’s Copley area, a day to laze around, a day to possibly go on a bike ride and do spring cleaning.

Monday: Day 1

I woke up, like any usual Monday, stayed in bed till the last possible moment, got ready to work, and then it hit me smack in the head that the MBTA was running on a weekend schedule due to Patriots Day. Wow what a start….the rest of the day went about  normally, with the people at work looking up the Boston Marathon updates, pictures of finishers, proud and strong, gleaming and exhausted.

And then, 3:00pm we hear stories of explosions at the Boston Marathon. At first thought we all think these are accidental explosions, someone brought the wrong couple of things here, it’s got to be a mistake…it’s got to be…this is Boston after all….  No one attacks us….No one had.

Then quickly we realize that these explosions were planned attacks, terror attacks , two of them at the finish line of Boston Marathon. Unfortunately we have grown in an age and world when explosions and terror attacks don’t blow our minds anymore, its just that sick feeling deep in your stomach when you realize that just when you had recovered from the last blow to the world, made sure everyone you knew was safe again, the security lines at the airport were beginning to move a little more quickly, they struck again….and caught you unawares…and violated your life…again..

TERRIFYING

Tuesday: Day 2

 After recovering from a night of news watching, and the ghastly images of all the people hurt and bloody, and brave, we all managed to get to work. It was a day filled with stories and scouring photos and being inundated with phone calls and messages from people making sure Im ok..Thank you for caring. I really appreciate it. And then that guilty feeling when you find yourself closing your eyes and sighing that for once you were glad you had to be at work.

SAD

Wednesday: Day 3

Wednesday rolled with piles and piles of images of from all the possible security cameras on Bolyston street. We spent our lunch time going through these reels of photographs trying to look for our own versions of Whodunit… and meanwhile looking at all those people circled who didn’t look like they belonged. If you were at the race, and for 30 seconds weren’t looking at the race, your face was circled in red my friend. You were that guy, there were arrows next to your face and backpack, and if you had sunglasses on? Uff..that was shady enough (no pun intended) for the vigilant cyberworld

SUSPICIOUS

Thursday: Day 4

For all the drama that ensued from Thursday evening, I was remarkably unaware. The numbness of the week was beginning to wear off. I had scoured all the possible articles there were to read about the bombings, the victims, the possible suspects, and I was drained. I was hoping we could all put this behind us and move on.

NUMB

Friday: Day 5

 I wake up to texts from my friend saying the MBTA is shut off, so I roll out of bed to turn my laptop on. Usually this sort of thing happens during snow storms, so you sort of expect it. But the weather was good, so what could be wrong?

Boston.com was on fire with the three images- One dead One at large. My eyes popped out of their sockets! What! What had happened? It was barely dawn? What had happened last night? And how could the MBTA be shut? How were people supposed to get to work? Rubbing the cobwebs of my eyes, I stumbled to the TV and watched the drama of the earlier night unfold in front of me over 20 different television channels. The alleged 7-11 robbery, the MIT police officer who lost his life, the high speed chase across the Charles, the crossfire with the police, the brother gunned down, and the massive man hunt for the younger brother. And one of the biggest cities in the Northeast on Lockdown… LOCKDOWN

(once wasn’t good enough)

Ok, we have lived through a number of terrorist attacks, we get up and go out to work the next day, we gloom and get shocked, but two days later life returns to normal. We pride ourselves on it. So what happened now?

Never ever ever ever had a city been on lockdown. Never had they hunted the suspects down and smoked them out in four days. We didn’t know what to do, we were in awe, and shock, and awe. These boys had grown up in the same area we worked in, took the same trains as we did, gone to the same schools as we had. They had spent most of their lives here, more than most of us. What had gone wrong? How could they do this to us, to our own city…their own city. How?

I watched the TV for 16 hours straight that day, where had this boy gone? Why would he still be in the area, he had escaped in the car after all. Mind full of questions, full of curiosity, trying to understand to the everything.

The day went by without any major happenings, I was sleepy but shook myself awake, refusing to shower incase the drama unfolded when I wasn’t around. I had missed enough last night, wasn’t going to miss anything today. But 6.30 finally after the daylight faded, the lockdown was called off, and we were slightly disappointed. For a day so high on adrenalin, we still hadn’t caught our guy. We made plans to salvage whatever remained of our Friday evening, and then…

While we still watched the remnants of the lockdown news, things suddenly swung into action, I pricked my ears, the urgency rushed back into the situation. A boat- a boy- helicopters- night vision – sirens- and the city biting its nails again…another hour of the tension rolled by as every cop in the state trained his gaze on that boat.

And then …euphoria.

INCREDIBLE.

 That moment when it was all over. A million people united in that day , in their homes, all waiting for that same moment. That moment when you felt like a victor just for having lived in this great city. In that moment, when everything this city throws at you seems bearable. Im never leaving you, my dear Boston!

 A city dumped with snow storms every year ( which we grit our teeth and bear), a city full of scientists ( who are trained to fail and bounce back) … You picked the wrong city to mess with dude..

*Im wish I had the guts to talk about all the victims who lost their lives or their limbs that day. I watch stories about them, their smiling faces with the President and First Lady. But I don’t see the nights when they wake up with an urge to scratch their lost limbs, I don’t see their pain and agony, but I know you are hurting, you and your families, and Im sorry I don’t write about you. Im not brave enough.