Boston, Tragedy, and Time
When I think of Copley Square and the Back Bay of Boston, my first thought is of a night a few years ago, when I was dancing—silently—in the rain. There were dozens of us having an iPod dance party: we’d arranged via Facebook to meet with headphones and rock out in the plaza next to Trinity Church. The rain fell hard and harder, and eventually my friends and I broke off to dance down Boylston Street, jumping on benches and generally making fools of ourselves.
It’s a silly memory, but there are others. I went to college at Boston University and then, for another decade, lived across the river in Cambridge and Somerville. I used to walk through the Back Bay every day to get to work. We’d walk up from BU to rent videos at the now-defunct Tower Records. I went on awkward dates on Newbury Street. After both my college and grad school commencements, my family members and I went out in the Back Bay to enjoy some of the Hub’s famous seafood.
Not being of an athletic bent, I generally avoided the route of the Boston Marathon; but when I was a junior my dad’s friend G.T. Mork ran the marathon and I stood in Kenmore Square for an hour, holding a sign reading BU [HEART]S G.T. He ran a little more slowly than expected, and never saw it.
Today, right in the middle of all the hard-earned celebrations at the marathon’s finish line, people died—violently, and unexpectedly. In our lifetimes, few will be able to visit the beautiful Back Bay without thinking of this terrible tragedy.
Boston has been touched by tragedy before, and we remember those sad days as well. There were the brutal persecutions of the colonial era, the shock of the Boston Massacre. Just a few stones mark the place downtown where five civilians were shot and killed in cold blood in 1770. That incident, at least, made the history books. Less commonly remembered—in fact, forgotten by most—are the scores of Bostonians who have been killed, injured, or disgraced because of the country they came from, or the color of their skin, or the street they happened to be walking down at the wrong time.
Wherever you live, there are tragedies beneath your feet as well. They’re hard to remember, but they must not be forgotten. Today, consider paying tribute to the victims of the Boston attacks with not just a thought or a prayer, but with action taken to help those who are at risk in your own community—at risk of violence that is no more justified than that Boston suffered today, but, sadly, much more predictable.
Then, when the time is right, have a dance party. Silently, maybe. In the rain if it has to be. Whatever it takes to move forward with respect, in memory, and with the joy we all deserve, for however long we have to experience it.