Boston Strong

In 1897, just one year after the success of the first ever modern day marathon, they held the inaugural Boston Marathon. Ever since then, the 3^rd Monday in April has been as special one for the entire area. Since its inception, the race has coincided with Patriots Day, a huge state wide holiday. Now, I had always heard about Patriots Day, a day set aside to honor the Revolutionary War battles of Lexington and Concord. I knew what it was. At least, I thought I did. I just never realized what it was actually like.

The Woodman family name is an old and established one in that part of the country. In the early 1600s, one particular Woodman, Edward, sailed from England to the colonies to help establish a new town in Massachusetts. 

For generations since that Woodman's arrival, and others as well, the family name has grown throughout New England. There are Woodman's all over. One of the family's claims to fame is the invention of the fried clam. People drive for miles in the New England area to make a pilgrimage to Woodman's and enjoy fried clams made from the family's original recipe. Three and a half centuries after Edward Woodman came to Massachusetts, his 10^th great-grandson (me) was also born in the area, in nearby Connecticut. Three years later, my dad took a job in St. Louis, and just like that, my days as a New Englander were over. Fate had decided that I would grow up as a Midwesterner, instead.

My sister Kelly is a running machine. She always has been. I'm not totally sure, but if someone told me she's was part robot at this point, I would probably believe them. Marathons for her? “Whatever.” Iron Man Triathlons? “No biggie.” Oh while you're at it, go ahead and pop out a litter of kids in-between races... “What else you got?” 26.2 miles to Kelly is like .2 miles to the rest of us mortals. Second nature. Dare I say, easy. So, it came as a surprise to no one, when she announced she would once again be one of the 30,000 participants in the Boston Marathon. Her third straight year running the race. No sweat.

What a difference 30 years makes.

After moving to Missouri, we visited our family back East sporadically. My Dad's only brother and his wife lived in Massachusetts. I remember when each of my two younger cousins were little. We saw them a few times, as kids. But, now, as an adult, I had only been back twice. Both times for each of my Grandmothers' funerals. Both visits were brief. I hadn't kept up with my East Coast family at all. Not really, anyways. An email from a cousin, here, a Christmas letter from my Aunt, there. I knew what everyone was up to. But that was about it. My only two cousins were adults now. They were both married and had started their own families. And I hadn't spent any real time with any of them in over 30 years. This year it would be different. This trip would remedy that.

To say that Boston embraces the marathon and Patriots Day is a vast understatement. We were not prepared for the amount of love that flowed from spectators that day. The race is a point-to-point one, meaning it has 26 miles to wind through the entire city. And all along the route, some 500,000 people cheered the runners on. Half a million. Picture that many people. The Boston Marathon ranks behind only the Super Bowl as the largest single day sporting event in the world. And these fans weren't just casually standing around, or using the day as an excuse to hang out and drink on a Monday. No. They were fully vested in the race. Cheering everyone on. Really cheering. Everyone. From the very beginning, when the elite leaders ran by (whose names and splits they all knew) all the way until the back of the pack passed hours later. People genuinely cheered. They shouted out people's names as they ran past (many runners wrote their own names on themselves somewhere.) Like real fans. “Go Jerry!” “You rock, Alice!” The entire time. They cheered. For runners. It was so great. So unreal. Boston loved this race. It was their race. And they showed it.

My cousin Christine and her husband Saul graciously offered their house up to us, for our visit. Offered is the wrong word. Insisted is more accurate. "OK...but our gang can be a handful,” I warned. With Kelly and her oldest son (Sebastian) staying there too, they assured us, “We'll make it work.” Right from the beginning, they did so much more than that. Saul, my newly-met cousin-in-law (is that what you call them?) treated us like we were guests on the Promenade Deck, and he was our cruise director. The slightest bit hungry? Here's some amazingly delicious food Saul just showed up with. Not hungry at all? Here's a box of mouth-watering cannolis that Saul ran out and grabbed. Totally stuffed? You can't be. There's more coming. More different kinds of local beer. More desserts from other bakeries. More. More. More. We wanted for nothing. Saul was our own personal concierge. “You need to go to this place,” he instructed. “And when you do, you gotta eat this.” So we did. We listened. We followed his advice. And we all left with our pants a little tighter.

Kelly struggled in this race. And when I say she struggled, I'm using that term loosely. Struggled by her robot-humanoid standards. Not by any sane person's standards. She hadn't trained at all. (Who does that?) And I mean not at all. A couple of injuries had kept her from running even once, leading up to the race. “Hopefully I won't have to walk the whole way.” she declared. She didn't. Even being unprepared, was only a slight challenge for her. Her body still knew what to do. Maybe her battery backup finally kicked in. But she willed herself on.

There was no struggle for us and my cousins. Everything came easy. Right from the start, it felt like we had known one another always. We had, I guess...technically...known them that long. Just with big gaps in between. But the gaps didn't show. Ever. When my other cousin Emily and her family joined in, nothing skipped a beat. It felt like all we did was hang out and shoot the breeze, pretty much our entire stay. There was no awkwardness. No disinterest. We all clicked. Like a real family does, I guess. Except, we hadn't spent enough time with them yet to have all the stupid baggage that normally gets in the way with families. No, with us, it was just the good stuff. We laughed. We told stories. Some old ones. Some new ones. We discovered shared familial characteristics (like our Grandmother's snore!) It was more than we had hoped for. It was perfect.

We know about them now.

Even better than hitting it off with my cousins, was watching the girls get to know their second cousins. Their connections were immediate and real and pure. They played a lot. They laughed even more. They had "sleepovers." They cried when it was time to leave. At one point Nina exclaimed joyfully, “It's like we had this whole other family that we never knew about.”

 

When Kelly stopped and chatted with us at our spot around mile 18, she seemed to be in an upbeat mood. After all, she was running in the greatest road race in America, and she got to share it with her family. She didn't seem to mind that her quads were killing her. She didn't seem to care that she had to walk as much as she did. I have to imagine that just competing in that event is an amazing experience. Every time she did it. Half a million screaming fans. That would never get old. Kelly finished the race in 4:34:22. Not a great time by her (own insane) standards. Parts of her ached, and other parts flat out hurt, but her body willed her on. She endured. She ran well. It shouldn't have surprised anyone. She was a runner, after all. She has been forever.

The day we left Boston, I found myself trying to make sense of what had happened. Why was I feeling so euphoric? This had been the first time, as an adult, that I had hung out with my family like this. Not counting my parents. Not counting my in-laws. Not counting my litter of kids. The rest of the people I shared my DNA with. The East Coast Woodman's. I hadn't had any real connection with any of them at all. Up until now. Yet, somehow we were still connected. We had a commonality. That thing you share with people you are related to. That thing that makes you alike. Your genetics. You souls. Your being. Whatever it was. It was there. Here was this bond that I had discovered, that I didn't even know I was missing. We all melded together seamlessly. Perfectly. I don't know why it surprised me. It shouldn't have. We were a family, after all. We have been forever.

"That whole other family" (L-R) Joey, Nina, Nadia, Sebastian, Jaxon, Zara, Norah, Georgia