Over the past year, the United States has experienced its own array of challenges, from the tragedy in Aurora, Colo. to the elementary school shooting on the other side of the country in Newtown, Conn. Add to that the events of Monday in Boston, Mass., as well as endless others and it grows harder and harder to understand humankind to some respect. Though the incident at the Boston Marathon happened over 1,400 miles away from where Creighton is in Omaha, the incident was chilling even here, especially to students whose hearts and loved ones are on the East coast.
Though this week may have been average for most people here, one Creighton grad was halfway across the country in her home of Boston, trying to decipher what these events so close to her meant, and what they would mean in days to come. Having graduated from Creighton in 2001, another tragic year in United States history, Erin Elliot lives in Boston. As she posted on her personal Facebook page, Elliot did not know how to handle what was unfolding before her and was in pure disbelief.
“I rarely read the first section of the Sunday New York Times – it’s too sad,” Elliott said to her friends on the popular social media site on Monday. “My world is better when I believe that reality for some people in the rest of the world only exists in absurd movies. However I am always moved by the pictures. I always try to imagine what it would be like if I lived in a war-torn country where snipers and car-bombs were an everyday occurrence. And then there was today, not far from my home and the homes of those dear to me, there were two explosions. No one knows why or who but everyone knows something is not right. And as I go to sleep tonight to the sound of sirens and helicopters, the reality that was reserved for some people in the rest in of the world just became mine.”
Elliot, who lives near where the explosions occurred, has now developed a fear that will stick with her, as she tries to live her daily, normal life in Boston.
“The horrible pictures that are usually reserved for the first section of the Sunday New York Times will now be familiar places in tomorrow’s local paper,” Elliott’s Facebook status continued. “Tomorrow I will wake up and get on the subway, with hundreds of other people that I do not know, and I will be scared. I will be scared because that is my new reality. I will be scared because there is nothing that I can do to stop these hateful things from happening to me or to those that are dear to me.”
This week has been filled with intense uncertainty for the people in the Boston area, like Elliott, as well as those whose families and loved ones are there. Creighton Business graduate Danny Treinen has many friends and family who went to college in the Boston area. Treinen attended the marathon for his first time this past Monday while out on the East Coast for a client event.
“I actually received a text from my older brother in Omaha asking if I was okay at the Marathon; then ambulances drove by and I started to hear murmurs in the crowd,” Treinen said of the incident on Monday. “First reaction was panic; I was just in shock that something actually happened.”
Treinen, who after hearing about what happened contacted his friends in Boston and let his friends back home know he was all right via Facebook, was on the sidelines of the event, but away from the finish line. Being near the scene, Treinen was impressed by the work being done to remedy the situation in Boston.
“I thought the cops were brilliant in such an unprecedented situation,” Treinen said. “They handled it with as much poise as possible; it was very professionally handled.”
Treinen headed back home to Omaha on Tuesday, and though it was his first time attending the marathon, is planning on attending again next year. He said despite the horrific events of that afternoon, it was a great day until that moment. Describing the day, Boston’s holiday Patriot Day, as normally a “perfect day where everything is always perfect,” Treinen said the people of Boston were shocked as well as panicked.
“I’m happy to physically be removed from it all, but still glued to the news and anything I read or hear,” Treinen said. “I’m still worried yes, but I have faith that they’ll be okay.”