What can I say about Boston?

I heard it all on the radio yesterday and today. I didn't watch any TV, I didn't even spend any time trying to look at news, photos, videos online. I am still planning to do it. I think I was just waiting for things to unfold, given that so little was known yesterday.

I don't know exactly why I haven't looked for videos, etc, except that it's hard to even think about it. The hows and the how comes and, much harder, the whys.

This evening I cooked beans and, as most every Brazilian in the planet, I used my (Brazilian) pressure cooker. And then I looked at my 8 year old son and I wanted to sit down and cry. He was excitedly (and unknowingly) talking about pressure cookers, how they make this noise, how they can/could explode. Yes... I thought, this simple cooking implement (though dangerous at times, my husband is traumatized from an explosion of cooking soybeans that half ruined his family's kitchen when he was a young boy) was used for evil. You're right, my son, I thought in my head, it can indeed explode and it did yesterday.

That's when I nearly cried. I ran my fingers through his curly hair and told him that someone had used pressure cookers to hurt people yesterday. He immediately started saying very loudly "Meanies! Meanies! Why did they do that?"

Yes, my son, why? (why so many nails and other pieces of metal? Why deliberately hurting innocent people so horribly? Sigh...).

My boys heard about Boston from NPR and K & I last night (K actually learned from me around 7:15 pm. He hadn't heard the news at all, having been home since 3:30 pm, working and not listening to the radio). My sons also heard it discussed in school today.

I don't believe in overly sheltering my sons, but sometimes I want to preserve their innocence a little bit longer, so I don't like talk about violent occurrences with them very much (I think we only talked about Newtown in passing)  I don't watch any news myself, so they are never exposed to it. I'm glad to hear that I'm already following Dawn's first recommendation. I think I'm going to follow her other pieces of advice very closely (asking what they know first and talking honestly to my tween -- does eleven classify as tween? I can't believe my son is ELEVEN!!! Sigh... And, of course, most importantly, spending time with family).

Last, but not least, I know Boston really well. Massachusetts was our first "home" here in the U.S. and we lived there for eight years. It is still the state we identify with the most, having lived there the longest, as well as the state where our sons were born.

Back in 2009 two of our friends lived only a couple of blocks from where the explosions happened and we visited them after their daughter was born, so I can picture that area in my head pretty well.

The hardest thing is to think about the people who were killed and maimed. A really senseless tragedy.

I just want to finish by putting things into perspective. Earlier today Michael Moore re-tweeted a link to this NYT story about the violence and killings in Iraq yesterday: 37 killed, over 140 wounded. They have these bombing attacks with multiple casualties there nearly every day. We had it yesterday and it was an unspeakable tragedy, but we need to be aware that it could be worse, much worse. :(

My prayers and thoughts are with the victims and their families.

Peace & love to you all.

Edited to add: It will be hard to read these stories. This one of the father seeing son's photo already has me nearly in tears. Sigh...