The 19 year-old college student who
seemed like a gentleman clearly was not, a fact that became terrifyingly
apparent after he and his 26 year-old brother set off two bombs at the finish
line of the Boston Marathon last Monday, killing at least 3 and wounding over
150 others. The men acted alone, attacking civilians at a non-partisan event, and
leaving many to ask the simple but as yet unanswerable question: Why?
From
two men who lived in the United States for the past five years and raised no
red flags during their time, the city of Boston has suffered a tremendous
amount of terror this week. And the fear didn’t stay confined within the city’s
walls, either; people all across the country with ties to Boston spent the week
anxiously waiting to hear that their friends and loved ones were finally safe. “The
one thing I wanted all week was just to be home, to be with my parents and to
be able to see my friends if I wanted to,” said PJ Fallon, a student at the
University of Denver who spent most of his childhood in Boston, and still has
many friends that live and attend school in the area. “[I wanted to] not have
to watch from 2,000 miles away, watching them going through the most traumatic
experience probably of their life right now,” he said.
When
the bombs went off on Monday, the general reaction was one of shock and an
immediate need to reconnect with friends and loved ones in or around the race.
Spectators and runners scrambled to find each other in the confusion, and loved
ones from outside the city were frantically trying to get in touch with those
inside of it. “I basically contacted everyone I knew in Boston just being like ‘Are
you alive? Really, are you alive, are you safe, what’s going on?’” said Fallon.
He was lucky enough to be able to answer ‘yes’ to all of those questions for
his friends, but many were not so fortunate. “All I can say is that I love you,
and that I’m sorry that everything is going on,” he told a friend in the area who
was having difficulty locating the people he knew at the race.
Another Boston
native living outside of the city, Melissa Wesenberg also felt the terrors of
Monday from her home in North Carolina. “Monday was a very scary day,”
Wesenberg said. “I had a lot of friends and family that were running in the marathon.
I had one friend whose family was waiting at the finish line for him. Ten minutes
prior to the bombs going off, his youngest son had to go to the bathroom. His
mom was very mad at him, but now looking back his son might have saved all
their lives by having to go to the bathroom.”
As
the events picked back up again with gun exchanges between the suspects and
police on both the MIT campus and in Watertown Thursday night, Boston residents
reached out for one another once more. Fallon recalled being out with friends
when the dramatic events began, and “[going] from total happiness to scared,
again, scared out of my mind” in an instant as he heard from friends that were
on lockdown five minutes away from the shooting area.
One
thing can be said for Boston residents, though: no matter how little they knew
or how scared they were, they never failed to pull together. “I have always
been proud of being from Boston, and this past week just made that feeling
stronger,” Wesenberg said. “Watching the way the people of Boston responded to
this was amazing.” A notoriously strong city, Boston showed the world this week
what love in the face of a crisis truly is. “I’m not a religious man,” said
Fallon. “But I prayed more this week than I think I have in a year.”
Memorials
for the victims have been held all week, with mourners placing flowers and
tokens at the site and churches in the area holding special services. The
London Marathon held on Sunday hosted a record number of spectators, many with
signs and banners showing their support for the victims Boston. A heartwarming
national anthem was sung by players and fans at a Bruins hockey game, and fans
of Boston’s opposing teams have brought signs showing their support for their
rival city. And Boston residents themselves have shown that despite this
attack, they will remain their new slogan – Boston Strong. “I have fond
memories of going to the marathon with my family,” Wesenberg said. “I have no
doubt that Boston will recover from this and come back stronger.”
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