“I just wanted to let you know that we’re all right.”
These were the only words I was able to hear from a seemingly out-of-the-blue phone call from my father before I lost the signal and my opportunity to ask what was going on.
It was April 15. Right up until this moment, my Monday had been unfolding like any other.
Little did I know that this phone call was just the beginning of an afternoon filled with fear, anxiety and utter disbelief, as the previously unimaginable details of the Boston Marathon bombings slowly but surely came to my attention.
Standing on State Street with nothing but my basic cellphone and my newfound confusion and fear, texts from friends at DePaul who had access to the news began to pour in, informing me of the pressing situation in my hometown.
I don’t become tearful often, but as I began to hear more and more dial tones on the other end of my phone calls to loved ones in Boston, I experienced a gut-wrenching wave of shock and terror that overcame me to the point where I could not contain my emotions.
I would be hard pressed to recall a moment in my life where I felt more powerless and alone than when I was pacing back and forth on the corner of State and Jackson, short of breath and on the verge of sobbing, desperately searching for a voice of reassurance and finding only silence.
Finally, I managed to get a hold of my uncle, who informed me that he had been in touch with most of my family and that they were all safe. He also confirmed my suspicion that the local phone lines were adversely affected in the aftermath of the events at the marathon. My father’s assurance that he and the other members of my family were all right was all that I had heard up to this point, so I was still waiting for news of my other friends and family.
The day went on with great anxiety, as troubling rumors implying further danger emerged and increased my uncertainty. Fortunately, I gradually began to receive answers from living, breathing voices instead of automated messages. I spoke to nearly all of my relatives and friends, one after another. I got a hold of my mother, my father, my uncles and aunts, my grandparents, my cousins and most of my friends. I clung to contact with all of them as if my own life depended on it.
It turned out that my best friend, Brian Payne, 21, had been on Boylston Street that day.
“It was like something straight out of a movie,” he said. “Other than police sirens, you could hear a pin drop. No one was talking, they just wanted to get out as quick as possible.”
The events of April 15 were harrowing and tragic not only for the individuals in the midst of the attacks, but also for the city and the region as a whole.
The city of Boston – the whole state of Massachusetts even – constitutes a small but relentlessly scrappy corner of the world. To be from Boston is to exemplify a unique culture, vernacular and spirit. As the main character of Cambridge native Ben Affleck’s directorial debut “Gone Baby Gone” put it, Bostonians “take pride in these things like it was something they’d accomplished.”
I harbor a pride in my hometown that some would call excessive and others even find comical. When I moved to Chicago, I felt that it was my duty to adorn myself in Boston sports gear on a nearly daily basis, and I dropped my “r’s” with greater emphasis than ever before. Removal from the region where I was born and raised only served to amplify my undying love and devotion to it.
Even in the aftermath of destruction, death and devastation, I pine for my home. I want to go there and see the people I love and miss so dearly, to have my sense of smell assaulted by the Atlantic Ocean air and to beat my chest as I scream the words to “Dirty Water” alongside all the other inebriated “massholes” outside of Fenway Park. I want to stand on Boylston Street on a beautiful spring day, cheering on the runners as they cross the finish line at the 2014 Boston Marathon.
More than anything, I want to experience firsthand the solidarity and perseverance of the people of the region whose strength and principle indisputably helped to found and sustain the United States of America.
I only hope that the rest of the world can absorb and imitate the same courage and persistence shown by my neighbors in the aftermath of these tragic events. While I may not be at home physically right now, my heart and mind is with the hub of the American spirit more than ever before.