On Monday, April 15, 2013

word count: 566

I was at home on Monday, April 15, 2013, when I heard about the bombs exploding at the Boston Marathon. I cannot remember whether I heard the news on television or over the Internet. I remember calling my sister between 9:30 and 10:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time, after that I poured myself a cup of coffee and either turned on the computer or went into the living room and turned on the television. If I turned on the television then I either turned to CNN or MSNBC, I cannot even remember which of those news stations I watched on Monday.

I am in shock. I remember the smoke from the blast. I remember seeing a runner fall. I remember watching people jump over the fences and tearing the fences down that separated the runners from the spectators. I remember hearing that there were several people hurt and two deaths. I remember hearing sometime later that the death toll had increased to three and the casualties increased. To this day I cannot remember the exact number of casualties, but I remember the pictures of the dead. I cannot get those photos out of my mind, especially the photo of Martin Richard.

When I first heard about the deaths, I almost stopped breathing and my heart rate increased. Thinking back I realized that there were two reasons for this, the first concerned the two Las Vegas marathoners who were running in the Boston Marathon. I do not know those marathoners personally, but they are locals. They are citizens of Las Vegas and of Nevada, their presence in Boston gave the events of Monday, April 15, a personal touch. The second reason is that it brought back memories of September 11, 2001 because of the Las Vegas connection to some of those victims. None of those who died in Boston were from Las Vegas, but that does not alleviate any of the shock or stress I feel about this terrorist attack.

Since Monday I have checked the updates, I go to msnbc.com or cnn.com to read the news article or watch the videos. I look for articles about the investigation in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. I turn on the local NBC evening news and listen for update and then I change channels MSNBC or CNN to find out what those stations have on the investigation. I am still processing the events of Monday, April 15, 2013. I am still attempting to get my feelings straight and disentangle them from the shock and the terror of that day. I suspect it is impossible to separate my feeling from the terror of those events because it was the explosions, the deaths, the pictures of the dead and the wounded that aroused my feelings of shock, and fear.

This is the first time I have written about the Boston terrorist attack, so perhaps I am getting past the shock. The next step is to sort out my feelings and find the precise words for those emotions. Once I am able to express those emotions in stanza and line then the serpent of fear curling in my stomach will uncoil. Only then will the shock and the nausea of this event pass; only when I can express the emotions in black word on a white sheet of paper with I be able to get on with the process of healing and of living.