The What If.

 

Last night I finished work with a heavy heart.


The events in Boston hit me hard. This was a world event that directly affected me.

Boylston street was bombed twice yesterday. I have walked down this street many times - most recently last Wednesday.

Last week I stood in a shop on this street. I talked to the manager of Marathon Sports. This is the store next door to where the first bomb went off. The store is located near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

The manager was in great form, talking about the impending marathon. It's normally their busiest time of year, where they get an inordinate amount of runners into their store. They were crazy busy, and the staff were smiling and working hard.

But now people will visit this area for another completely different reason. They will visit to take pictures and say "This is where it happened!"



Some person, and I'm being extremely polite here, decided to take the lives of others whom they don't know. They took the lives of innocents for their own selfish and ludicrous reasons.

Upon watching the television reports, the realisation started dawning on me. Seeing the senseless loss that occurred and the familiarity of the surroundings that were being shown on every screen, I started wondering "What If?"

My first concern was for myself and my wife. She arrived home from Boston just yesterday. She could well have been down at the finish line, taking pictures.

I have run a few marathons, and always wanted to run Boston because it always has been a runners marathon.

If I was in Boston yesterday, I would have been down at the finish line.

I would have been watching the elite marathon finishers.

I would have been in the crowd, outside Marathon Sports. I would have stayed for a while watching people achieve their own personal glory of finishing a marathon.

But then I realised that we can't live your life wondering "What If?"

Otherwise these bastards will have won. Life is for living - not for gauging your own mortality and questioning your potential actions.