Boston is part of my Heart

Something didn’t feel quite right about business as usual for me today. It is important to take a moment and a pause when things like this change the history books forever. I want to be resilient and move forward with normal life, but today is simply not a normal day.  So, instead of the planned blog post I just wanted to post about the hope and love I felt yesterday, under the dark cloud of grief that was overtaking Boston.

Dan and I, have only lived here in the Boston suburb of Newton since March 2010. We never really actively let this city into our hearts, always thinking we were just not a part of this community.  We thought of it as a temporary home until we moved on. The funny thing is, as a married couple, this is the place we have lived the longest. We have a home here and unbeknownst to ourselves, we have indeed become a part of the community.

As the news played on all day in the living room, I sat in a chair and spent literally hours trying to connect with all the people that I could think of in our lives here. I checked in with the local photography community. I checked in with Dan’s work colleagues as well as colleagues I had worked with in the past.  I checked in with our Boston area clients. I checked in with my friends from out of town who were here just for the marathon. I checked in with a woman who had been to our house to buy photography equipment who I knew was working as a photographer at the finish line.

I checked in with people I knew but what I realized was that I was checking in with our friends, some of them I didn’t realize just how much I cared about until I was scared they were gone. I love you’s were exchanged for the first time.

People I had never met checked in with me. People cared.

There is great sadness around this city and I realize just how blessed Dan and I are. This event revealed to me just how much love we do have in this place, that I had simply been overlooking these recent years. We are new here… but now we are part of this place. No longer is Boston just a place we live. Boston is now a part of me and a part of our hearts.

The funny thing is that it has been for a while, we just didn’t know it.

As all of us struggle to wrap our minds around the details and the reality of what happened, I encourage you as well as myself, to focus on the love that is all around us. The love that you have for the people in your life, and the love they have for you is real.

Please pray for us here in Boston because the pain is great but love needs to be greater. Like I said yesterday right here on the blog: God is love and love is real.