April 19, 2013
Today the events of the Boston Marathon have finally caught up with me.
I’ve been avoiding it.
Well, not completely. I did manage to take this shot of the near completed Freedom Tower on my weekly trip to NYC from upstate New York, a city that I love, a city that I work in and where I grew up.
Every week I see this tower and I think three things in succession:
1) I miss the Twin Towers.
2) There are people who lost people in those towers that miss them every day.
2) Wow, we really are moving on.
Every time I see that tower I think of what was there, what we went through, and that it is over.
When things are devastated, it is a time of shock, chaos and grief.
Breaking.
And then, the Phoenix rises. Without fail.
Resurrection.
Looking forward to seeing what rises up in Boston.
Click here to read more about why it often takes a tragedy to remind us of humanity.
7 responses to “From NY to Boston, With Love”
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It seems we must move on. Whether we are ready, want to or even if we have fully accepted what happened, happened.
We will not forget. I will not forget.
The Phoenix rises, without fail. In it’s own beauty and righteousness, it will always remind us of what we lost, but in it’s own unique mysteriousness.. it also gives us what we all need, Hope.
Amber-Lee, thanks for your poetic, heartfelt response. Here’s to Hope.
“And then, the Phoenix rises. Without fail.”
Some of my children are grown and married. Some are still too little to process things like the Marathon bombing. Yesterday we had the news on, something that’s a rarity in our hose. Catoons rule. You know?
But because the news was on, my 7 yr. old was confused and worried about what a manhunt was and what was going to happen “in the end?”
It came to me very quickly – with young children it has to be quick or “I don’t know” – and I blurted out that bad things happen, but in the end in always works out….the Phoenix always rises. There will be suffering and sometimes fear, but there’s always a rest from it when we rebuild our hope and our communities…until the next time.
I’m convinced that that is true.
Thanks, Blair.
Thanks so much for your comments, Betsy. Your kids are very lucky. And I enjoyed taking the very well written tour of your garden this morning on G+.
Blair, thanks for this fine short post and also the article you linked on “Our Inner Lives,” — truly touching. You ask that very important question of where and when our humanity surfaces and why. I guess I sense we yearn for that humanity often, and also too often numb it out beneath our routines and our mechanical refrain, “I’m fine. I’m just fine,” especially when we’re not. The wound is there but then, so also is the healing.
Dan, Thanks so much for reading and for your reflections. The disconnected “I’m fine” is an epidemic I’d seriously love to see evaporate.
[…] as part of the Lead with Giants community on G+. She wrote a truly wonderful and heartfelt post, From NY to Boston, With Love, on this tragic event speaking of her experience living in the Big Apple. Conveying beautiful […]