24 hours in Boston

Monday, April 15 was the beginning of school vacation week. It was starting to feel like spring time finally. The buds were slowly showing up on the trees and the much-used snow shovels of the past few months were tucked away and forgotten until Mother Nature called again next winter.

It was Patriots Day in Massachusetts in honor of the moment that the Revolutionary War began when "the shot heard round the world" was fired on Lexington Green. Re-enactors gathered on the very spot in the early morning hours to commemorate America's initial steps toward independence from the British crown.

It was Marathon Day. Thousands of runners from all parts of the globe converged in Hopkinton to run in 117th Boston Marathon. The Red Sox were playing their annual game, the only 11 a.m. start of the baseball season, as Marathon runners ran by Fenway Park during the game on their way to the finish line in Copley Square.

The weather was pleasant, traffic was light. Then in an instant, joy, safety and the way of life we take for granted in our city was shattered by terror.

The images and the horror were and remain overwhelming. I went to sleep that night like all residents of Boston, like all Americans, like all those throughout the world weary of sudden terror committed in their backyard, with a heavy heart and a worried mind.

If there was anyway there could be a rewind button and terror had not struck, we would all wish for it, especially for those whose lives were taken or forever altered.

The next day I edited this video conveying our feelings that we should live our lives as we do, as we must, no matter how others wish to disrupt them. We mourn, yet we carry on.

I wanted to show how a day filled with so much promise and history had changed so cruelly in an instant and also show the resiliency of Bostonians pulling together in the aftermath. But the people of Boston have shown that o their own. We all mourn the victims, pray for the injured and are grateful for the authorities for finding those responsible.

We are resilient, we are Bostonians. Like those in New York, Oklahoma City, London, Barcelona and the many other places who have suffered from such events, we will overcome and we will persevere. Boston Strong!

Cox Media Group