New Englanders call it raw, that chilly, damp weather that cuts right to the bone no matter how many layers of clothing. Last week — deep into April — we had some of those days.
Weather as a fitting complement to our mood — raw nerves frayed by the killing and capture of bombers one and two, and by the bits and bytes of information released to the public truth stranger than fiction:
How can it be that, in the days after the bombing, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev went back to his UMass Dartmouth campus to work out in the gym and party in his dorm? How can it be that the boat where he hid, after the Watertown shootout left his brother dead, was named The Slip Away II? And what to make of the advertisement for the Forum restaurant, where in the immediate aftermath of the explosions, the restaurant staff treated the bruised and bloodied? The ad reads “Extraordinary events. Unparalleled service.”
Traffic is flowing down Boylston Street and subway trains are rumbling through the Copley T station now. Just two weeks since the explosions rocked the very ground on which thousands ran and stood, we are still searching for solid footing.
We’ve brought flowers and sung songs to the homemade memorial near the bombing site. We’ve buried our dead each funeral a sharp reminder of just how much we’ve lost. We’ve attended memorial services with more remembrances to come.
Outside of Boston, the intense media spotlight has moved on, the conversation shifted. And, even though there are plenty of important issues that demand our attention, somehow here it seems disrespectful to talk about something else.
And so we gather in large conversations and small, wear the t-shirts declaring "Boston Strong," and struggle to accept a return to a routine still far from normal.
We are on the road to healing, but I know we are a long way from closure.
It’s too soon. Too fresh. Too raw.
