Towards the Smoke

I can't sleep. 

The first phone call I made when the news started was to my good friend who is a Massachusetts native. I thought her husband might be running today. 

He wasn't. But her brother-in-law was there and several cousins and friends. I don't know what they all must be feeling. I cannot imagine what they are lying awake thinking. 

Her sister's friend lost his legs. 

I can't sleep.

Logan came down the steps this afternoon and somehow I didn't hear him. He asked why there was so much red by those police officers, and if those soldiers there were his daddy's. 

He asked if he had to watch the news too.

Such innocence.

When I dropped him off at school today someone on the news was talking about the multiple bombs that went off somewhere in Iraq and I thought how horrible it must be to live in terror every day. How much those people must fear and hurt. I wondered if there was a point where it just became "every day", if it somehow phased them less. I cringed at the thought of that.

I had no idea. 

When C came home he explained what they meant about the bombs - how what they were describing makes such a horrendous impact. I knew that all of those were things he knew well.

While not sleeping I am exchanging texts with a friend who was sitting on my heart. Her dad - a native of NOLA - crossed the finish line moments before the bomb went off. Moments before.

She can't sleep either.

I cannot know what it is like to live in a nation that brings terror on its people. I cannot know what it is to live in a part of the world where days like today are normal. I cannot know what it is to hate so deeply, to have such a callous disdain for another's way of life. I cannot know how a person can place a bomb where there are children and families and human beings. 

I cannot for a moment make sense of any of that.

I cannot imagine what the victims, the many who lost limbs today, the families of the dead ... of that precious, precious eight-year-old child ... I cannot know what that despair ... what such agony must feel like ... I cannot know.

I can't sleep.

I cannot imagine what it is to live in a world of terror - daily terror.

I noticed the first person in the footage who, the second it was understood that people were hurt, ripped through the barricade. I noticed the soldiers in that footage who ran to do the same. The police and first responders who quickly fought through the metal stands and scaffolding. I noticed the many people running towards the smoke and the destruction. I noticed all of the "red" that Logan asked about and I noticed the people ripping their shirts off to place on the wounds.

We will not be a nation that accepts such hatred, such evil. We will not be a nation that succumbs to fear and despair. We will not be a nation that accepts such horrors in our daily lives. We are a nation that when hate invades, compassion pushes out. We are a country that when evil threatens our resolve, goodness rushes towards the battle. We are a nation of more greatness than hatred. A nation that rallies and links arms and raises the flag and says, "Terror will not own us. Terror will not define us."

We are a great nation - we, the people, define this nation. We will run towards the smoke. We will weep for our country. We will mourn the dead. We will heal the wounded.

We will keep our resolve. We will stand ready. We will run towards the smoke.

We will
BElieve THEre is GOOD in the world.

We will be the good and goodness will always win.