Let me finish tonight with this.
Kathleen and I were in Boston this weekend to visit our actor son Thomas. I came away with a memory and a fairly deep realization about the human spirit.
It’s really quite simple really. We show respect. We honor loss with the one human act that we can all offer equally.
Silence.
That is what I heard as we walked up Boyston Street to the police rail cutting off even foot traffic from the Finish Line and the other bombing site from last Monday.
People have left things there – little things like Teddy Bears for Martin Richard and Red Sox stuff and all kinds of handwritten messages of regard and devotion.
And, most of all, the silence. A town that just loves talking sports, politics – mainly sports – just shut it all down – out of respect – respect for the dead – for the wounded, especially the badly wounded – – out of respect for this assault on the people, most of all the people of Boston.
I remember the same silence in New York after 9/11. I remember riding the J train, the subway up from Downtown, and silence there, the silence that filled the air and spoke so loud.
And so when we say – “Let’s have a moment of silence” – that’s just a way to tap into something that’s already a part of us, a part of the way we humans show something’s been done to us that deserves our respect, our strongest feelings for the part of us that’s been taken from us.
Chris Matthews