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To begin, I know this won't accomplish anything but provoking thought. It's a prime example of "slacktivism", but it's what I want to do. Here goes.

Today is the closest I've been connected to an act of terror. My brother, Bostonian and marathon runner, passed by the location of the bombing 60 seconds before it went off, but when he passed, it was just a location, no prepositional phrase.

I've been thinking of how drastically things change in just 60 seconds. Actually, that things can change so drastically in 1. Right up until the instant that it became rubble, that sidewalk was just a sidewalk. And to think my brother was 60 seconds ahead of that instant.

This may be because I just saw Jurassic Park for the first time and idolized Jeff Goldblum, but my mind instantly started creating all the possible scenarios that could have stalled him 60 seconds. He could have stopped to relieve himself, he could have had to tie his shoe, he could have had to stretch out a cramp, he could have had a slower pace because he didn't train that one day when it was raining because the butterfly flapped its wings in Peking.

I was 60 seconds away from possibly losing a brother, and didn't even know it. That minute passed the same for me as any other had, and I had no idea that it was the most important minute of my life so far.

Never again will I take for granted a single minute that I'm not dead or in danger, and neither are the ones I love.

That's a lie, I will. But I'll think about how I took it for granted, and feel insurmountably and simultaneously guilty and grateful for it.

And in case you missed my opinion about tragedy, I'd like to direct you to Super, Heroes, Demise of Humanity, and Beauty and Love in Loss, because it makes me sad to have to repeat these things, and I don't want to. Four is enough, sad blog posts suck.