"Blown Together"

Today I am grateful for safe travels over the weekend, nice weather, enjoyable family time, and a couple of good runs with Darcy.

The 118th running of the Boston Marathon gets underway in the next few hours. The Boston Marathon is a prestigious and storied event. This year, one year since the April 15, 2013 bombings that killed three, made 16 others amputees, and injured over 260, there are more emotions and more eyes on Boylston Street and all around Boston. I appreciate the 36,000 runners and the anticipated one million spectators. I will be tracking what I can via computer and TV.

I am a faithful reader of the magazine Runner's World. I pretty much read it cover to cover every month. The most recent issue was full of stories about Boston. Incredible stories like Roseann Sdoia and her rescuers. Roseann lost her lower right leg in the second blast. She may have lost her life if not for the actions of Shores Salter, Shana Cottone, and Mike Materia; a college student, a cop, and a firefighter. Four complete strangers, brought together in an instant of violent tragedy, now with a bond they could have found no other way. It is a story of losing and finding. Read the full article, appropriately titled "Blown Together" here.

It is a story that really struck a chord with me. For many reasons. We never know the plans in store for us on a given day, and how quickly what we know so well can be lost. But when we lose, we also somehow often gain. We find the strength we need and give strength to one another. I have found that to be the case in my life too, though I have never faced the horror of what these four saw and experienced last April 15. With faith and hope, and trust in a power beyond ourselves, we can get through the toughest of times. We can learn the most valuable of lessons.

There will be many stories, many emotions, many steps taken one at a time by many runners today in Boston, but also around the world. That is the stuff of life.

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