How I Will Respond to the Terrorists Who Almost Killed My Mother

I'm from Boston. I grew up going to games at Fenway, I've spent many nights out drinking on Boylston street, and yesterday I watched bombs detonate in a crowd not more than a few hundred feet from where my mother stood.

I have been in shock since I first heard of the attack, going through the mechanical process of finding my family and friends, but now I'm feeling a rage start to burn through the shock.

I'm horrified that someone decided to attack innocent bystanders in the town I love, that someone would try to kill families and children cheering on runners. I'm humbled by the bravery of the Boston Police Department and the Boston Fire Department as they seek to secure the city, to make sure that there aren't more bombs waiting to maim and kill my fiends.

But above all I'm angry. Dammit, I'm furious that anything like this can happen at all. I want to find whoever did this and strangle them with my own two hands. I don't want to just see them arrested and jailed. I want to do it myself. But I won't.

Someone nearly killed my mother today. My mother who I love more than anything in this world.

Writing this, my eyes tear up, my blood boils, and my muscles tense up, looking for an outlet that will let me do something, ANYTHING to stop atrocities like this from happening.

I wonder: How can the same species that creates art, and science, and poetry do things like this?

We all have the capacity for evil within us, but we also have the ability to control it, to choose not to kill. We have the capacity for joy, for creation and love. Going forward, we need to, as a people, stop senseless and terrible acts like this.

To whoever did this, you tried to kill my mother today. I will in turn, educate your children. I will make it so they do not follow in your footsteps. As much as I want to, I choose to not give in to the call for hate. I choose not to give in to the urge to destroy. I choose to create, to educate, to help build a future where people like you aren't hunted down, because people like you don't exist.