Eight-year-old Martin Richard, the youngest of three people killed in the Boston Marathon bombings, was buried on Tuesday morning in a private service.
In a brief statement, his parents Bill and Denise Richard thanked everyone who had reached out to them. Their young son died; their daughter Jane lost a leg; and Denise sustained a head injury in the blast.
“The outpouring of love and support over the last week has been tremendous,’’ Bill and Denise Richard said in the statement. “This has been the most difficult week of our lives and we appreciate that our friends and family have given us space to grieve and heal.’’
The statement said “a private Funeral Mass was celebrated this morning with immediate family. We laid our son Martin to rest, and he is now at peace. We plan to have a public memorial service in the coming weeks to allow friends and loved ones from our community to join us for a celebration of Martin’s life.”
At the interfaith service in Boston last week, President Obama spoke about Martin and the little boy’s homemade poster on which he’d written the words, “no more hurting people. Peace.’’
The principal of the school where Martin and his sister Jane attended and their mother worked as a librarian described it as “their home,” and vowed that “kids are going to feel real safe here.”
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