On April 15th, 2013, I was sitting at Brandy Pete's, the restaurant that I work at, when my dad called me frantically to see if I was okay. I was rolling silverware after a typically busy lunch getting ready to leave and head over to the marathon just in time to catch the end of the race. When I answered the phone, my dad was in a full panic and told me what had just happened. At the time, there was 3 families in the restaurant who had just finished the race, the bartender, myself, and our manager. I turned the TV on the news and there was immediate coverage and my whole body just became numb.
As a country, we all learned from this event, just as we did with the 9/11 attacks. But as a city, I have NEVER seen anyone come together more than the city of Boston did during this time. Everyone became everyone's best friend. No one was turned away, everyone was so genuinely happy to be with friends, family, even alive. When they caught Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, my whole neighborhood rioted. I lived in Mission Hill at the time and the BPD barricaded one road off for us and just let us party until all hours of the night--it was one of the best feelings of my life. I felt like I had my safety back, and I felt so lucky to live in the city that I do.
Moving forward from this will be hard, we all have an extra sense of security but we are all extremely cautious now. It taught us a lesson, that no matter what, we can come together as one and fight for whatever it may be. The city still seems to have somewhat of a somber ambiance to it, but it gets better and a little easier each day. Personally from this, I learned to never say "it'll never happen to me" or to think that your above the chance because anything can happen to anyone and guess what, it did. I learned to be a little more cautious each and everyday. I still get a bit jumpy near trash cans, or the sound of construction weirds me out a bit, but all in due time will everything get better.
