Lisa Hickey was changed by the bombings, in unexpected ways. Here, she shares how.
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The first bomb went off at 2:50 pm on Monday, April 15, 2013 at the finish line of The Boston Marathon. I was watching the race and I knew my daughter Allie would be running down Boylston Street any minute. I heard the blast, and in the 10 seconds before the second blast several thoughts raced through my head. The first thought was, “Odd they would have a cannon going off before the race is completely over.” But then, as I looked to my left and saw the smoke thick in the crowd, in a place where no cannon should be, I grabbed the blue sweater on my daughter Shannon’s arm. “What’s going on?” she asked, her voice rising with fear. “A gas explosion?” I replied, uncertainly. There must have been screams, but in my mind there is complete silence. That moment, as I turned to look at the smoke, squinting quizzically as I searched for clues to make sense of what I saw, is frozen and imprinted in my mind. I can see the blue sky, the small tree to my right, the flags, the smoke in a perfect plume. It was the first of many, many times in the next few days that I would get limited information, look for clues and try to make sense of things I didn’t understand. “Let’s go”, I said to Shannon, as we turned away from the first explosion and ran directly towards the spot where the second bomb was about to go off.
♦◊♦
Yesterday, at 11:05 pm on Friday, April 19, 2013 I watched on live streaming news as the citizens of Boston poured onto Boston Common and began singing “The Start Spangled Banner” and “Sweet Caroline”. It reminded me that total strangers who come together ad hoc can’t sing in tune. It didn’t matter. The sound was as joyous as that first blast was terrifying. Just four days after that first explosion, Bostonians had come back to celebrate. The sounds in the hours before that celebration had included gunshots, blasts, helicopters, sirens, police scanners, press conferences and officers knocking on doors to look for a missing suspect. I listened to the sound of bad singing come out of tinny speakers on my computer, and together with others, breathed a collective sigh of relief. I had just retweeted on Twitter:
“Boston is probably the only major city that if you f*ck with them, they will shut down the whole city…stop everything..and find you.”
When the suspect—a 19-year-old kid whom I had since learned about in a multitude of ways—was captured, I wanted to say “we” helped get him. As if I was the man who saw blood on the tarp of the boat in his backyard and alerted the police. I can imagine the boat owner standing there, momentarily frozen in space and time as I had been days before, trying to process the dark red stain of the blood and knowing that what he saw was about to change everything.
♦◊♦
The boom of the second blast was when I knew everything was about to change. I mean, the BOOM. A sound 10x louder than the loudest clap of thunder I had ever heard. A deep, resonating, vibrating, sonorous BOOM. If I let my mind go there, I can recreate the exact tenor of the sound. I fell. I thought to myself, “uh-oh, I just survived an explosion but am about to be trampled to death.” I reached around for my glasses, which had gone flying. It was only days later that the dark blue, perfectly round bruises up and down the outside of my left leg, the leg facing the bomb, gave me enough information to realize I had fallen because I had been hit. As I lay there looking at legs running past me, a kind stranger stopped mid-way to his escape to help me up. My daughter Shannon was sobbing, trying to phone her sisters, her brother, her father, all of whom she knew was somewhere in the crowd. “I can’t get in touch with anyone, mom. I have to find them.”
I stood there with Shannon and heard someone in the crowd yell “It’s a bomb”. My mind went back to the first explosion. The smoke. The flags. It clicked. “It’s the Boston Marathon we’re at,” the voice inside me said. “Of course it’s a bomb.”
♦◊♦
What has changed for me in the past four days, other than everything?
1) I now have bomb experience. Last night, just minutes after the second suspect had been captured, my son John and I were discussing tourniquets. “It should be as close as possible to the injury as possible, right mom?” Yes. And wide and tight. At least 1-1/2” thick. I had no reason to know that before. But 13 limbs were amputated in the blast. 13 people helped with tourniquets. And now I know. “I want to learn everything I can about how to help,” said John after the blast. “Part of the reason for running away is that I wouldn’t have known what to do if someone needed help. I want to know.”
2) I understand and accept that news is different in today’s world. The news is no longer merely “reported” on, but it is collectively experienced in real time. This is not going to change. I would rather understand the implications, understand the consequences to the change, and find ways to use it for good. I want to keep learning about how this will affect the way things are.
A phrase that kept coming up as the Boston region was in a lockdown while the police were looking for the second suspect was that it was a “fluid” situation. The situation was fluid because what was known kept changing. And one more piece of information could change everything.
I had heard about the MIT guard shooting on Facebook while sitting at my computer. Some time later, I heard some loud noises. I jumped. “Wow, you’ve become jumpy since the blasts,” I told myself. But then there were sirens, and the sounds of helicopters – in reality. Outside the street where I lived. “Oh no, not again.” I thought. Once again, I had to make sense of information that was not giving me a complete picture of all I needed to know. So I turned to Twitter.
For the record, Twitter did not give me the complete set of information either. But it gave me a combination of first person stories – tweets from people in Watertown, the town just blocks from my house. People were sharing pictures of SWAT teams and soldiers. There were links to the mainstream media. I had heard sounds, and people on Twitter put a name to what I was hearing. “Gunshots”.
The reason this is so important to understand is this: When I was at the bombing, I was the news. And the first news outlet I told about the bombing was Twitter. Later, I would be on radio broadcasts (Al-Jazeera), make TV appearances (Headline News) and do print interviews (The Guardian, GoLocal Providence). But at the moment when everything was happening to me, the question wasn’t “where do I go for breaking news?” The question was, “where do I go when I am breaking news?” And my first, instinctual response was Twitter. Because I knew the news would get to lots of people fast. People who might need to know the very information I was giving them. The second thing I did after tweeting was call a GMP Editor. So the information could get out more accurately. The story of that call is here.
And not only did the news reporting change, but crowd-sourcing for critical information became a reality. Within hours of the moment the FBI released photos of the two suspects to the public, things began to happen. Some of the things that happened were catastrophic. An MIT police officer was killed, and others injured. Some of the things that happened were the desired outcome. The suspects were apprehended. The question is, how do we take a such a powerful tool, understand the potential consequences and work together to use it for good? We need to figure it out. And I want to be among those that helps figure it out. When it comes to ever-changing technology, no longer do I wait for others to figure it out and tell me what they learned. I want to be knee-deep in the process. I know I don’t have all the information; I know I don’t know everything. That is OK. If I learned anything through this, it is that I never had all the information I needed. It was collective, shared, information that made a difference.
3) I had an amazing insight about men. Yes, I am head of The Good Men Project. And so, I get new insights about men all the time. But this one insight seems life-changing to me: “Acts of heroism are acts of love.”
Why is this life-changing? Because I don’t think the narrative out there right now is that men are constantly involved in deep, fundamentally good, acts of love. All the time. Men are not talked about, as a group, as being demonstrative of their love. Of being ongoing catalysts for acts of goodness. And yet they do that all the time. I think the narrative is that men take heroic actions because they are told it’s a role they must play, because men are “supposed” to be strong, supposed to be brave. Because they are “manning up” the way they were taught to. If love is talked about with men, it is in the context of sexuality. When men are called “lovers”, it is often code for “womanizers”. But men act in love, and show that love, all the time. For some unfathomable reason, we call it something else.
I don’t think men get enough credit for love.
♦◊♦
Yes, I changed. I learned, as Drew Diaz explains, you walk towards those who need help, or walk away. I learned you embrace the way technology is changing and make a conscious decision to be a part of the group who helps make it better, or you ignore the changes. I learned you can see men as capable of deep, world-changing love, every single day, or you can believe they are the enemy.
I changed because there was so much strength, so much kindness, so much love. And there was nothing left to do but look for the good.
Yes, I changed. And I’m reminded of the lyrics from the musical Wicked to tell me exactly how I’ve been changed: “I have been changed…for good.” Sing it with me, will ya?
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UPDATE: (There’s always an update lately. The stories don’t end) I finally drove up to see Allie, the daughter I had connected with only by text at the Boston Marathon bombings but hadn’t seen since before they all happened. Yay! How great is a hug! We compared war stories, literally. She told how she was running that last mile of the race, full of energy, and when people started saying “the race is over”, she thought she hadn’t made it there in time to get an official time. Then she heard “two bombs went off at the finish line” – and she had no perspective to know how big the bombs were. So she was picturing the type of bombs that airplanes drop in war, or the explosions at 9/11. That was her only frame of reference. So she immediately pictured the finish line leveled, a gaping hole in the earth, and thought “My whole family must be dead. I’m an orphan. And it’s all my fault for having them come to see me run.” She was not with anyone she knew at the time, had to borrow the phone of a complete stranger before she could text me “mom, it’s allie, are you ok?”
The second thing she asked me which was interesting was whether I saw the second bomb, since I was right there running towards it trying to get away from the first. And – no. I heard it – an loudness unimaginable. I felt the earth tremble and tilt and everything was disoriented. I felt myself crumble. I smelt the smoke, and saw legs go by as I was on the ground. But no, I didn’t see the second bomb go off – I simply experienced it.
PS: All is good. My leg looks worse but feels better. My words may sound painful when I write, but I am so eternally grateful. My heart and thoughts are still with the victims and their families and all of the amazing first responders. I was simply there. I am a witness, and it seems from the response I’ve gotten, my story is important. But it is not that important in the scheme of things. It is only one of many.
Photo by @danteramos / Twitter
First of all, I’m so glad that you and your family are okay. I can only imagine how hellacious that experience must have been for you and everyone at the bomb site. I’m moved by everything you shared – particularly your third insight, that “Acts of heroism are acts of love.” Of course, I agree with Alyssa and her husband, who state the obvious truth, above, that women do this too, and I applaud the countless women who do this. At the same time, I feel that there is a deep and important significance to your third insight specifically vis… Read more »
Thank you Shalom! That is a great insight — that mowing the lawn can be an act of love. I wholeheartedly agree. If only more people could understand that.
If you want to expand on this comment for a post for us, let me know. My email is [email protected] (I know you’ve contributed before, thank you).
Thanks for the invitation, Lisa. I love the idea, which integrates with my daily practice. I’ll let you know if something comes to share. I love what you and your team have created with this site, and I want to do what I can to support it.
Brady, my firefighter husband, wanted me to tell you that although he agrees with everything you’ve said, he wants to make clear that women do this work too. Many of them. Including his immediate superior, a woman I consider my second mother.
It is at once so hard, and so easy, to “let” him go to work each day. I know what he is going to, and that I may not get him back. But I know what he does…… People need to understand the toll it takes. Not just the physical risk (and it is real, even without trauma, their bodies are worn in ways you can’t imagine,) but the emotional toll of seeing the worst that humanity has to offer. As well as the most dangerous. And fragile. There are times when I see him on the news, working with… Read more »
I can’t imagine the toll it takes. I saw just one tiny sliver of it, and it has taken a tremendous toll on me. I am so glad I struck a chord. It seemed to me really important for people to understand. I got a lot of flak from people who said “of course we know it’s love.” But I really don’t think that is the way it’s talked about. It’s talked about as “bravery” or “courage” or “strength” or “honor”. But love is seen as too “mushy” for what it is. See Josh’s comment above for some of the… Read more »
“Acts of heroism are acts of love.” As one married to a firefighter, and often surrounded by them, you hit the nail on the head with this one. You can spend an entire day with firefighters and never run into an ego. You cannot spend a day with firefighters without feeling utterly enveloped in heart. In love. They tell each other they love each other. They tell their friends and families they love them. They know what matters, and they live it every day. Getting only fragments of news on an island in the Mediterranean for the last week, it… Read more »
NOTE: Someone messaged me this on Facebook, and after corresponding, he said I could post it anonymously. I think it’s important to this conversation — Lisa, I say this with respect, with no intention of starting any argument, and I’m gad you came to realize point #3, but I’m sad that you’ve only realized this now. I’m glad that you and your family escaped any physical injury. I hope none of your friends or their families were injured either. Perhaps you have had experiences in your life that led you to doubt point #3. I’m not familiar with your writing,… Read more »
Acts of heroism are acts of love – beautiful and life changing.
Okay. Why is it not called love?
I have no idea. That is what I don’t understand. That is part of the problem of why I believe it can be difficult for men these days. Because they are seen as “manly” but not “loving”. When nothing could be farther from the truth. Their actions prove their love, and just in some way it’s seen as “masculine strength” or “winning over terror.” We rarely speak of those acts of heroism coming out of a true love of humanity.
That is part of what we are trying to change here Richard.
I dunno, Lisa. I think everybody already knew it. I mean, what other reason would there be for the various things you are thinking about? Tom Clancy wrote an interesting obit or essay about his friend Gerry Carroll. Carroll was a helicopter pilot in the military for a long time. When he got out, he flew for the local version of Life Flight in Florida. He was quoted as saying that when it’s a kid, you cut corners. Speaking of dangerous weather. Clancy said that sort of thing can only come from love. Point he was making was that it… Read more »
Then why do you hang out here Richard? What is the change you would like to see?
Lisa, I’m not sure what Richard is talking about, but this seemed like the appropriate place to make this comment … I have never thought of being “manly” or “manning up” as a negative or that we think of those terms without love. I actually connect those to love or being loving. Sometimes the oldest son has to “man up” and be strong for his mother and siblings when the father dies – that is love. Or a father has to “man up” and work a job they hate to put food on the table for his family – that… Read more »
Thanks for this thoughtful comment Josh. I find it incredibly sad that men “think” that women want a manly man and not a loving one. But I totally agree that this happens: “So we use other words, we find other ways to talk about it or show our love for other men without looking un-manly. It is an intriguing thought and discussion.”
It really is fascinating, and I hope that by continuing to talk about it we get past the stereotypes and to the truths that will better help us understand and connect with each other.
Because it’s in the job description. Blame it on the patriarchy or whatever. See the Colorado shootings. Three heroes who died and one guy who ran away and didn’t do what he was supposed to. Who got the most attention? In this life you don’t get extra credit for doing your job even if it requires your death. Yeah we love you all…old news. How about letting us know why you can’t love us back.
We — I — do love you all back. What would have made you think otherwise?
Lisa.
Of course men do that stuff. Always have.
Who’s idea was it to pretend otherwise, so that the reality is new to you?
Richard, I never said men didn’t do those things. Nor did I say I didn’t know they did those things. I said those actions are not called love. That is what changed.
“Acts of heroism are acts of love… I don’t think men get enough credit for love.”
I think you just changed my perception of a great deal with those words. And thank you for the riveting and illuminating account above, no doubt painful to write but I hope – also – healing.
Sending love, from one Bostonian to another. To all the others. And to all those holding Boston in their hearts.
Thank you D.A. It reframed things for me too. Appreciate your words of support, and, yes, to all those holding Boston in their hearts.