4/15

It's a strange thing, how well we remember some of the worst moments of our lives. Of course, some of the best moments are lumped in there as well - for every person that remembers exactly where they were when JFK was shot, there's another that knows exactly what they were doing when Neil Armstrong set foot on the surface of the Moon. But it's the moments of tragedy that quite often rise to the forefront of our memory.

It's why I remember what video game I was playing when my mom opened the basement door to tell us that the Columbia had seemingly disintegrated upon re-entry. In a dark twist of fate, the action I paused to listen to her was the Death Star trench run (7:00 in).

It's why I remember watching coverage of Virginia Tech in my basement and being ever so slightly more nervous for my own college experience beginning the next fall, and hearing about Newtown before a final I was proctoring and then later having to turn away from the coverage because I simply couldn't take it anymore. 

It's why I remember I was reading Prisoner of Azkaban in the backseat of our van when my mom got the call in the parking lot of the Troy, N.Y. Wal-Mart that her maternal grandmother had died.

It's why I remember my brothers were watching me get stuck in a whirlpool playing The Wind Waker when my mom walked downstairs to tell us that our paternal grandmother had passed away.

It's why I remember I was emptying the bottom part of the dishwasher when my dad silently rounded the corner of the staircase to tell me that my paternal grandfather had just died.

It's why I remember the exact spot I was sitting in when my 7th-period, 7th-grade Tech Ed class was told that after-school activities had been cancelled on a beautiful September day because "there has been a national tragedy." It's why I remember that in the split second my teacher gathered himself before going on to explain further, I thought, "Oh no, President Bush has been shot." It's why I remember the school administrative assistant emphasizing over the intercom in 8th period that the "towers fell down and are no longer there." It's why I remember going home and only then realizing the full extent of what had happened as I watched Rudy Giuliani give a press conference.

And it's why I'll forever remember walking out of Aaron Brown's Turning Points in TV History class earlier today just after 1:15 and the sequence of events that followed. I thought the lecture we had just had about Peter Jennings was going to be the most trying part of my day.

I was wrong.

As soon as I made the right-hand turn to head in the eventual direction of the staircase, I knew something was up. There were four or five of my classmates lined up along the railing peering down at the big projection screen. In the two seconds that transpired before I got to a spot where I too could turn and see what I assumed was on CNN, I flashed back to the last time I had encountered such an obvious interest in some kind of news. It was May 1, 2011, and every student's computer I saw as I walked out of the Heights Room Mass was trained onto a live stream of this or that news channel. I couldn't see what was going on, but I had a sense that it wasn't a coincidence. It, of course, was not - as I got a text not 10 seconds later saying that bin Laden had reportedly been killed.

So with this as the precedent, I reached the spot and pivoted to see...an overhead shot of a street and what looked to be a few people in the middle of some kind of strewn-about debris. I can't remember exactly what the headline thing lower third (come on Sean, you took a broadcast class, you know what those are called) at the bottom of the frame said, although I'm inclined to think it was something along the lines of "2 dead, 28 wounded." This sounded awful, but was little help in deciphering what exactly was going on. Then my eyes started to wander a little more closely around the frame. And I saw a very familiar-looking broad stripe stretching across the street. And the debris began to reconstruct itself in my head. And the horrible realization of just what I was looking at began slowly dawning on me. And just as I put together what had happened, the headline thing lower third changed.

Explosions at Boston Marathon. (or something similar)

I suddenly couldn't believe what I was seeing. It wasn't possible, really. Couldn't be possible. It's the Boston Marathon - Patriots' Day, Marathon Monday. Early Red Sox game, no classes, nothing but fun all day long. And now this? You have to understand, I'm speaking as someone who was part of the festivities for four years at BC. As somebody who's stood across the street from where the bombs went off. This was fairly personal for me. About 2.5 hours previously (or an hour before the attack), I had seen a quick hit on CNN about the winners. The Twitter exchange I had after waking up with a friend about how I was missing being in Boston now seemed as if it was from a different reality.

I just stared at the screen. Didn't move, barely spoke. Even when I spoke, I couldn't string more than a few words together. I was so stunned that it took me a few minutes to realize that I needed to check up on my friends in the Boston area, all of whom thankfully turned out to be safe.

Eventually, with several afternoon interviews staring me in the face, I pulled myself away from the First Amendment Forum and tried to get on with the rest of my day. But it was nearly impossible. I was initially overwhelmed upon getting back to my room trying to sort through everything on Facebook and Twitter, not to mention catching up on email. The interviews managed to go off without a hitch, but it wasn't easy to compartmentalize. While flipping between the coverage on ESPN, ABC and CNN, I saw the video of the explosions so many times that it would seem to have a numbing effect, but the screams that accompanied the ominous roar of the second explosion as everyone realized it wasn't a freak accident were as chilling on the twentieth listen as they were on the first. It was sickening to realize over the course of the day, as the casualty count kept growing higher and higher, that this was going to go down in the annals of history - and it was even worse when it was referred to by CNN (I think) as the first widespread attack on American soil in a dozen years. As I listen to my iTunes library while writing this, all the upbeat songs seem totally incongruous with how I felt throughout the day.

But life goes on, as it must.

It's not easy to soldier on when all you want is some quiet time to yourself. It's not easy to keep moving forward when you're 2500 miles away, wanting to be back home (and at this point, NH and Boston are more or less Home 1 and 1A) to share in trying to make sense of it all with those closest to you and being there for each other.

But I'm in Phoenix, and I have more articles to write, more interviews to conduct, a book to finish reading and a job to find. So I take a little time to write to sort through my thoughts and then go on to what must be done.

Ultimately, however, this day is not about me and my personal efforts to deal with the bombing.

This day is about Boston and those affected - the victims, their families, the witnesses, the first responders (proving yet again who the real heroes in the world are) and countless others.

Congratulations, whoever did this. You picked the wrong city to mess with. If you were hoping to instill fear in everyone, well, it certainly didn't show in the amount of people running toward the explosions immediately after they happened to help those injured. It certainly didn't show in the runners who kept going to Mass General to donate blood. It certainly didn't show in the massive amount of people willing to open their homes to anybody who needed a place to stay.

It may be part of BC's fight song, but today and for the forseeable future, it applies to the whole of Boston - For Here All Are One.

Prayers and thoughts are with everybody in the Hub tonight.