Look for the helpers…

Yesterday was a beautiful day here in Massachusetts.  I got up as usual and got to enjoy my second cup of coffee watching baseball as the Red Sox traditionally start at 11:00 a.m. on Patriots Day.   It was a good game and the Sox won.  After the game to celebrate the beautiful day, we decided to take the dog out to lunch to one of our favorite outdoor eating places.  And afterwards, we took the long way home.

Once home, I went to my office to begin to wade through e-mails.  That’s when Greg called up to me and asked if I had heard the news.  A bomb went off at the Boston Marathon.

 

For the rest of the afternoon, we sat, like so many did, watching the coverage as events unfolded.

  Seeing the same videos over and over.

  Despair creeping in.

  Who would do such a thing?

Then at one point, I checked my Facebook page and saw that my daughter, Carrie, had shared a quote from Fred Rogers:  “When I was a boy and would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers.  You will always find people who are helping.’”  It made me take a breath and begin to look at the news coverage with new eyes.

My heart goes out to the victims of this heinous act and their families.  And my thanks and profound admiration goes out to the many people who, without thought of their own vulnerability, rushed toward the victims to do what they could to help, to the weary runners who continued on to the hospitals to donate blood, to the citizens of Boston who opened their doors to strangers in need.

  Because of people like you, I will never lose hope for a better world.