The following is from the Richards family, who lost their eight year old son Martin, and whose seven year old daughter Jane lost her leg in the marathon bombing on April 15, 2013.
I am grateful such people exist in this world.
I am sorry they have had to lose so much. I believe they are right, and hope the death penalty will not be the sentence for “the marathon bomber.”
Thank you for sharing your bravery, courage, and humanity Bill & Denise.
To end the anguish, drop the death penalty
In Bill and Denise Richard’s own words
The past two years have been the most trying of our lives. Our family has grieved, buried our young son, battled injuries, and endured numerous surgeries — all while trying to rebuild lives that will never be the same. We sat in the courtroom, day after day, bearing witness to overwhelming evidence that included graphic video and photographs, replicated bombs, and even the clothes our son wore his last day alive. We are eternally grateful for the courage and life-saving measures of first responders, Boston Police, the Boston Fire Department, and good Samaritans on April 15, 2013. We also thank the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, the Department of Justice, and the Massachusetts US Attorney’s Office for leaving no stone unturned during the investigation and trial.
But now that the tireless and committed prosecution team has ensured that justice will be served, we urge the Department of Justice to bring the case to a close. We are in favor of and would support the Department of Justice in taking the death penalty off the table in exchange for the defendant spending the rest of his life in prison without any possibility of release and waiving all of his rights to appeal.
We understand all too well the heinousness and brutality of the crimes committed. We were there. We lived it. The defendant murdered our 8-year-old son, maimed our 7-year-old daughter, and stole part of our soul. We know that the government has its reasons for seeking the death penalty, but the continued pursuit of that punishment could bring years of appeals and prolong reliving the most painful day of our lives. We hope our two remaining children do not have to grow up with the lingering, painful reminder of what the defendant took from them, which years of appeals would undoubtedly bring.
For us, the story of Marathon Monday 2013 should not be defined by the actions or beliefs of the defendant, but by the resiliency of the human spirit and the rallying cries of this great city. We can never replace what was taken from us, but we can continue to get up every morning and fight another day. As long as the defendant is in the spotlight, we have no choice but to live a story told on his terms, not ours. The minute the defendant fades from our newspapers and TV screens is the minute we begin the process of rebuilding our lives and our family.
This is a deeply personal issue and we can speak only for ourselves. However, it is clear that peace of mind was taken not just from us, but from all Americans. We honor those who were lost and wish continued strength for all those who were injured. We believe that now is the time to turn the page, end the anguish, and look toward a better future — for us, for Boston, and for the country.
Now, here is a good, no upgraded to great, actually FUCKING AMAZING, idea. Since men make $1.00 and women make 76¢ (by the way, did you know that the ¢ symbol is option/4 on a Mac, I didn’t until just this very minute) to that $1.00, how about charging men extra for everything they buy? That’s what Less Than 100, a small shop in Pittsburgh is doing. I wish I lived there. I would support it. Take notice, retail.
Since all that white stuff, 108 inches of white stuff, to be specific, has melted, my yard has become like Marlin Perkins Wild Kingdom. There are like these crazy, bold, acrobatic squirrels who are flipping and running, and look like they’re trying out for America’s Got Talent, a bunch of robins, an unusual amount of bluebirds, and bunnies, which is brand new. We have never had bunnies before. Bunnies in Brookline. Maybe the winter freaked out all the animals the way it freaked out all the people, and they’re in serious vacation mode. Today I pulled into my driveway and a squirrel was at full attention on his hind legs, seemingly praying to my garbage cans. I love animals, so like, the more the merrier. But seriously, it’s like watching an animal version of Footloose from my kitchen table.
So, poor Pink, the singer, not the color, is being fat-shamed. Being famous, for all its positives, is a mother fucker, in that you are judged every moment of your life. So, if you wear a dress that doesn’t make you look emaciated, get ready for a firestorm of twitterati. And get out your earbuds, if you gain a few pounds. GOD FORBID IF YOU ARE FAMOUS AND YOU GAIN A FEW POUNDS (and you thought it was bad as a regular person), because you are going to hear about it.
Anyway, I just wanted to say that a couple years ago, my good friend Colleen and I went to a Pink Concert. We had great seats, and let me tell you, the things Pink’s body could do were Barnum & Bailey, Cirque de Soleil SPECTACULAR. This woman is like a freaking Mexican jumping bean on crack. She was literally FLYING through the air. Her abs were rock hard, her legs as muscular as a body builder dude. Her voice was clear and beautiful too, but her athleticism was like, crazy out of this world.
You really cannot believe what Pink was doing at her concert. The contortions, the ballet moves she pulled off hanging from rope. At one point, she literally dive-bombed into he audience. Look at those legs. The woman defines muscular.
Here’s what Pink, the singer, not the color, said to the twits on Twitter:
Ha! And she was at 11%, too! Pink’s music is empowering, and I’ve always loved her spirit. I even like the dress she’s being shamed for wearing. She is an admirable, powerful, smart performer/mommy. Thanks for speaking up. Take that, you stupid haters.
Maybe it started in the garden in the back of the house I grew up in. My dad out there tinkering with tomato trellises, and building little fences to prevent the woodchucks and bunnies from eating our cucumbers and beans, like they were doing a stop in at Mickey D.’s. Maybe it was the fact that we had a lot of perennials around our yard, and my mom was always picking flowers and making sweet little arrangements. Whatever it was, although, I had a period of being able to kill a plant just by looking at it, I have grown to love the act of gardening. Yesterday, I filled my trunk with a first round of flowers. Just enough to give me something to look at on the front porch, and a little color in the backyard. I bought myself some new, peppy orange gloves, but when I got home, realized I’d bought a kid’s size, so I had to go all natural. And while I will be digging dirt from underneath my nails until next spring, it was sort of transformative to have my hands submerged in the damp, black soil, primping and patting the flowers into their new homes, as the sun shone down, and the memories of that snow became so five minutes ago. Yes, I had to pull out the sleeping bag coat on Saturday for a soccer game in New Hampshire (and damn, I swore I’d never talk to that thing again), but yesterday, yesterday was bliss. Yesterday was spring. Yesterday was gratitude.
I love this woman. She is brilliant, wise, and funny too.
Anne Lamott. I’ve been a rabid fan since I was pregnant with Jake. I had read her book, Operating Instructions, and immediately had a crush on her writing, falling head over heels for her heart. She is sublimely intelligent. She can write so gorgeously that in one moment, she can make you laugh and wish you had on your Depends undergarments, and in the next shatter your gut into 27,568 splintered shards of sadness. Her take on life is a mixture of spiritual reflection, nama’scray (definition: the crazy in me honors and recognizes the crazy in you), hilarity, chocolate, and God. I have never read anyone who can use 26 letters more humanly.
This is what she posted on Facebook a few days ago. It’s a beauty. FUCKING GRATITUDE.
“I am going to be 61 years old in 48 hours. Wow. I thought i was only forty-seven, but looking over the paperwork, I see that I was born in 1954. My inside self does not have an age, although can’t help mentioning as an aside that it might have been useful had I not followed the Skin Care rules of the sixties, ie to get as much sun as possible, while slathered in baby oil. (My sober friend Paul O said, at eighty, that he felt like a young man who had something wrong with him.). Anyway, I thought I might take the opportunity to write down every single thing I know, as of today.
1. All truth is a paradox. Life is a precious unfathomably beautiful gift; and it is impossible here, on the incarnational side of things. It has been a very bad match for those of us who were born extremely sensitive. It is so hard and weird that we wonder if we are being punked. And it filled with heartbreaking sweetness and beauty, floods and babies and acne and Mozart, all swirled together.
2. Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.
3. There is almost nothing outside of you that will help in any kind of last way, unless you are waiting for an organ. You can’t buy, achieve, or date it. This is the most horrible truth.
4. Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, and scared, even the people who seem to have it more or less together. They are much more like you than you would believe. So try not to compare your insides to their outsides. Also, you can’t save, fix or rescue any of them, or get any of them sober. But radical self-care is quantum, and radiates out into the atmosphere, like a little fresh air. It is a huge gift to the world. When people respond by saying, “Well, isn’t she full of herself,” smile obliquely, like Mona Lisa, and make both of you a nice cup of tea.
5. Chocolate with 70% cacao is not actually a food. It’s best use is as bait in snake traps.
6. Writing: shitty first drafts. Butt in chair. Just do it. You own everything that happened to you. You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves in your heart–your stories, visions, memories, songs: your truth, your version of things, in your voice. That is really all you have to offer us, and it’s why you were born
7. Publication and temporary creative successes are something you have to recover from. They kill as many people as not. They will hurt, damage and change you in ways you cannot imagine. The most degraded and sometimes nearly-evil men I have known were all writers who’d had bestsellers. Yet, it is also a miracle to get your work published (see #1.). Just try to bust yourself gently of the fantasy that publication will heal you, will fill the Swiss cheesey holes. It won’t, it can’t. But writing can. So can singing.
8. Families; hard, hard, hard, no matter how cherished and astonishing they may also be. (See #1 again.) At family gatherings where you suddenly feel homicidal or suicidal, remember that in half of all cases, it’s a miracle that this annoying person even lived. Earth is Forgiveness School. You might as well start at the dinner table. That way, you can do this work in comfortable pants. When Blake said that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love, he knew that your family would be an intimate part of this, even as you want to run screaming for your cute little life. But that you are up to it. You can do it, Cinderellie. You will be amazed.
9. Food; try to do a little better.
10. Grace: Spiritual WD-40. Water wings. The mystery of grace is that God loves Dick Cheney and me exactly as much as He or She loves your grandchild. Go figure. The movement of grace is what changes us, heals us and our world. To summon grace, say, “Help!” And then buckle up. Grace won’t look like Casper the Friendly Ghost; but the phone will ring, or the mail will come, and then against all odds, you will get your sense of humor about yourself back. Laughter really is carbonated holiness, even if you are sick of me saying it.
11. God; Goodnesss, Love energy, the Divine, a loving animating intelligence, the Cosmic Muffin. You will worship and serve something, so like St. Bob said, you gotta choose. You can play on our side, or Bill Maher’s and Franklin Graham’s. Emerson said that the happiest person on earth is the one who learns from nature the lessons of worship. So go outside a lot, and look up. My pastor says you can trap bees on the floor of a Mason jar without a lid, because they don’t look up. If they did, they could fly to freedom.
11. Faith: Paul Tillich said the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. If I could say one thing to our little Tea Party friends, it would be this. Fundamentalism, in all its forms, is 90% of the reason the world is so terrifying. 3% is the existence of snakes. The love of our incredible dogs and cats is the closest most of us will come, on this side of eternity, to knowing the direct love of God; although cats can be so bitter, which is not the god part: the crazy Love is. Also, “Figure it out” is not a good slogan.
12. Jesus; Jesus would have even loved horrible, mealy-mouth self-obsessed you, as if you were the only person on earth. But He would hope that you would perhaps pull yourself together just the tiniest, tiniest bit–maybe have a little something to eat, and a nap.
13. Exercise: If you want to have a good life after you have grown a little less young, you must walk almost every day. There is no way around this. If you are in a wheelchair, you must do chair exercises. Every single doctor on earth will tell you this, so don’t go by what I say.
14. Death; wow. So f-ing hard to bear, when the few people you cannot live without die. You will never get over these losses, and are not supposed to. We Christians like to think death is a major change of address, but in any case, the person will live fully again in your heart, at some point, and make you smile at the MOST inappropriate times. But their absence will also be a lifelong nightmare of homesickness for you. All truth is a paradox. Grief, friends, time and tears will heal you. Tears will bathe and baptize and hydrate you and the ground on which you walk. The first thing God says to Moses is, “Take off your shoes.” We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know.
I think that’s it, everything I know. I wish I had shoe-horned in what E.L. Doctorow said about writing: “It’s like driving at night with the headlights on. You can only see a little aways ahead of you, but you can make the whole journey that way.” I love that, because it’s teue about everything we tey. I wish I had slipped in what Ram Das said, that when all is said and done, we’re just all walking each other home. Oh, well, another time. God bless you all good.”
In the department of, “I didn’t see that coming,” Mayor Marty Walsh has proclaimed April 9, “Riot Grrrl Day” in Boston, in honor of original riot grlll Kathleen Hanna who’s performing at the Wilbur on tonight. Really?
If you’re all like, WHO IS THAT, ANYWAY, you might want to watch a great documentary about Kathleen called The Punk Singer (I loved this film). In short, she is a musician and activist, who was in the bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, and became the voice of the Riot Grrrl movement, which thrust her into feminist icon status. She wanted her concerts to be a safe place for da girls, and asked the boys to move to the back of the bus. She was also very involved in the empowering DIY zine culture that was just emerging. She is, and was the super coolest.
But back to Marty for a moment, if you will. I am feeling rather impressed with this move. I mean, would you have ever thought he would even know who Ms. Hanna was, let alone give her a day? Ok, Marty, I’m a little in love with you right now.
The Mayor’s chief of policy, Joyce Linehan, who will actually give Hanna the award, says in part, Mayor Walsh is honoring Kathleen Hanna because, “Our young women can’t be what they can’t see. Girls need to see other girls picking up drumsticks, basses, and microphones. They need to see other girls picking up paintbrushes and pens, and telling their stories. Loudly.” Fuck, yes. I’m feeling like a proud Bostonian today.
Things I I would really like to do, but probably never will, but wish I could, but am grateful I thought of, anyway:
1. Work for OPI or Essie making up nail polish names. You know, like, for my job.
2. Be a window display designer. You know, because I am qualified (as a writer).
3. Live in Paris and speak like a native (I am about as good with languages as I am with numbers).
4. Have a small floral/antique shop. BECAUSE I FREAKING LOVE FLOWERS. AND ANYTHING WITH CHIPPED PAINT AND A STORY.
5. Teach a dance class (because I stopped taking ballet in 7th grade, picked it up again in college, but have not taken it since then, so I’m VERY qualified).
6. Create a jewelry line (Then I could make jewelry for myself, who cares about anybody ELSE).
7. Have the power to make the sun come out (BECAUSE THE WORLD IS BETTER WHEN THE SUN IS OUT).
8. FLY (Because I have always wanted to. I really should have starred in Birdman).
9. Drive a car really, REALLY fast (I am too afraid to do this).
10. Say hello and smile at every person I see for 24 hours (and not be arrested for harassment, or just plain being weird).
Aside from trolling for gratitude everyday–making sure I’m noticing even the tiniest good thing going on in my life, I think it’s useful to take time to really think about what makes you feel the kind of unadulterated happiness that gives you rosy cheeks and makes you reflexively smile. And then of course, to try to get more of that stuff in your life, even if you have to wedge it in there like a size 8 foot into a size 6 shoe. I don’t care if it fits, it seems worth it to focus on how to make more happy, right? Doesn’t it?
More coffee with friends.
I realized recently that I can feel guilty when I plan things that are purely fun, like fun is a some sort of drug runner crime. If you asked me if this was true, a couple of months ago, I WOULD HAVE LAUGHED AN INCH FROM YOUR NOSE. But after thinking about it, I realize it’s kind of surprisingly true. I’m not sure where this came from, and I assure you it doesn’t exactly stop me from doing fun things, but I wonder why I can’t just feel an unfettered glee, instead of like I’m committing a child-caught-with-her-hand-in-the-cookie-jar indescretion.
More girls nights out.
Is having fun a guilt inducer, unless it’s completely organic and happens because of unplanned circumstances? Is planned fun, which often can take you away from the essential shit you gotta get done, inherently bad? Have I not had enough therapy?
More live music, theater, museums.
I’m grateful to have recognized this, because just by pulling it out into the light, I think I can evict it, and make more time for scheduled F. U.N. Bring on the dance music.
*the gratitude-a-thon 