(no subject)

[jianantonic]

Holy shit.

I flew to Knoxville today via Houston. The Boston marathon was just starting when we took off, and I wished my friend Chris good luck before shutting down the phone. He finished (with an amazing time of 3:10!) while we were laying over in Houston. I talked to Emily (Emily = my best friend, "little sister," Chris is her fiance, I'm the maid of honor in their wedding in six weeks) and she was all kinds of happy for him and they were just going to head off to celebrate. I shut my phone down for my next flight, and when I landed, I had 30 gazillion texts asking if Emily was okay.

Kelly told me that someone told her there'd been a bomb at the marathon and had I talked to Emily. "Yeah, I talked to her, she didn't mention any bomb..." Like, lol, people crazy. But then I scrolled down and saw a text from Emily that said "I don't know if you heard or not but we are all okay." So, holy shit, there was a bomb. And she was kind of right there. Jesus. Since Chris had already finished, they were on their way to celebrate at a pub and weren't right there when it happened, but they heard it -- they just didn't realize what it was until things started to get crazy a few minutes later. But she's fine, he's fine, and I'm so glad. So sorry for those who are injured and worse...

Then there's this other part of me that thinks about race mentality. The people that were still on the course were diverted and the race was shut down, obviously. And duh, that's what you've gotta do in this situation. And also, duh, perspective, people were killed, so getting grumpy about not finishing the race is kind of not okay, but holy shit. I know the mental state I was in for the half marathon, and I'm not nearly as intense about running as anyone who does Boston (you have to qualify and it's very elite). I can just imagine the complete mindfuck of the race being called off as I'm near the end. It would be absolutely devastating. And then I would feel super shitty for feeling that way, because, perspective. So I imagine some of the runners are having some pretty intense emotions today. I just...I can't even.

And then I got word that Virginia Page died this afternoon. She'd been in hospice care for four months now, and basically was given hours to live before Christmas, when she made the conscious decision to stop treating her ailments and just let herself go. She accepted hospice care, but that's it, no medication or anything to fight the illnesses she had been dealing with. We all had a chance to say our goodbyes, and we did, and then she just kept right on living. But we knew this time was coming, and all were prepared. It's no shock and I'm not terribly sad about it. She was ready and I am thankful for that. But I will miss the heck out of her. She always pointed out the ways that I reminded her of my grandmother (they were best friends), and that warmed my heart so much. We were pen pals right to the end -- I think the card I sent her on Wednesday would have arrived in time for her to see it. I have her last letter to me on my fridge, because it was clear when she wrote it that it would be the last one. I'll post the text of it when I get back home.

Emotional day.

Comments

[hikerpoet.livejournal.com]

It is weird when you hear about people who were at that type of thing and they only have their own personal focused yet confused view and can't really comprehend it with the knowledge they had til later. As mentioned my step-mom was RIGHT there too and pretty much saw it all go down, but talking to her ten minutes later I already knew much more than she did (not that we still know that much). It also reminds me of when MA had a pretty big crazy tornado a couple of years ago and it was a quarter mile from my mom's house and I called to see if she was okay and she didn't even know what was going on and didn't believe me at first because those things have such a narrow path. I have a few dozen friends and family members who were within a couple of blocks and none of them really knew it was as bad as it was til later. You hear loud booms for various mostly innocuous reasons in cities all the time. Who would have thought?