Dear Coward

Dear Coward:

I would have expected by now to have seen your face and know who you are. For the love of your God, your country, your cause, your hatred, or your delusion. For isn’t that why you did what you did? Your utter detest for us must run deep. I am sure this is your ultimate redemption. You must be in between modes of celebration and righteousness. So where are you?

You and I may have walked the same sidewalk, just 48 hours before you did what you did. As I was celebrating, with my family, the talents of my cousin and her classmates at Boston University on Saturday night, and before that, dinner with some dear friends in the North End. We laughed and joked and loved being in each other's company. Where you there? Did I see you? Did I ask you for change for a dollar in quarters for the parking meter?

For years, my mother took my daughter into Boston, from a suburb 12 miles away on the train, to see the Boston Marathon. They stood exactly where you stood. In the same spot, in the same place as those you ripped apart.

But aren’t you proud? Where is your face, your name and your cause?

What you may not know or care about is that Boston has seen blood on it’s streets before in the name of your cause, or one just like it. And we don’t take it lightly, nor do we bow down to it. We are a city and a nation of people who may forget from time to time to outwardly show our love for each other, but fiercely fight for one another when harmed or threatened. We, here, are smack dab in the birthplace of patriotism. That’s what we were honoring yesterday, something that can’t be taken away by a bomb, or words, or actions or even prayer.

What you did was not fight for your cause, but unite in numbers and in concrete form what already exists. Our pure pride for our land and our fellow man, woman, and child. You have no idea how fiercely we will protect our freedom to walk our streets, play with our kids, love our neighbor.

Did you see? Are you watching? There were so many people running into the havoc you caused to help someone. To comfort them, show compassion, cry with them, and bandage them. There are people now, uniting in social media, on street corners, in neighborhoods and across dining room tables to wipe away your evil. We will mourn for the loss of life and help those that have to live what you did to them. We will rebuild our storefronts. And soon what you did won’t be seen any longer, but will continue to be felt, and it will fuel the strength that we pour into our lives and our loves and our world. We will fight against you.

So why not show us who you are? You are certainly now part of our history. We need to know your name, I guess, to add to the books, magazines and certainly Wikipedia. You are now apart of a long history of those that tried to take us down and failed. There are more of us than there are of you and there always will be.

Those that cheered on the sidelines for the ones that ran the ultimate race, show support that you will never truly feel. Those that ran, they ran for lost love, the fight, their ill children, their love of a strong body, mind and spirit. They are already unbeatable. You may have brought them to their knees, temporarily. But this is why we run and cheer and share our lives with one another. This is why we support one another.

Once again, there are more of us than there are of you and there always will be.

So by next week I suspect we will all know who you are as we drag into the spotlight and dissect all of your thoughts, your parents, your religion, your history or your every step. But the week after, you will prove to make us begin to be stronger than ever before.

So why not let us see who you really are?