Unless you’ve been living under a rock, the news of the world currently is that two bombs were set off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, and at the time I’m writing this, three are confirmed dead as a result, and hundreds of people are injured and hospitalized. Additionally, there is no clue to whom is responsible for the bombings, but it’s being perceived as a probably act of terrorism, and the scary thing is that it purportedly could have been worse, as there were claims that additional bombs were found undetonated, also along the race path.
Obviously, this is a horrible incident and leads to the path of thinking of whom in their right mind could perpetrate such a heinous act, why they would want to target innocents at a major gathering event. I really do feel for those affected by this horrible incident, and I’m easily someone who really wishes the absolute worst on the person or persons responsible for the act, and wouldn’t mind hear of them being put to justice with some extreme prejudice.
But I could seemingly inappropriately change gears a little bit, I have to say that it’s really not that surprising that something so horrendous happened. But it’s my brog, and I write what I want to. Yes, it’s going to sound selfish, conceited and certainly making it about me, but if there was ever one occasion where I think I could be given just a little bit of leeway for doing so, it would be my birthday, which is just days away. The bottom line is that as long as I’ve lived, there’s been this odd propensity for horrendous events to happen near or around my birthday.
And as far as I’m concerned, it’s kind of not fair, and it really upsets me.
One of the more earlier tragedies that I can remember was when a horrendous fire killed over 50 people in 1993, in Waco, Texas. I was too young and naïve to really know the reason behind the entire siege, aside from the fact that it seemed to stem from a conflict of religious nature, but all I remember was having a family gathering to celebrate my birthday, with all the grown-ups glued to television, mouths agape, and eyes unblinking, while the breaking news on all of the network channels were showing massive fires, and a steadily escalating count of bodies being recovered.
Two years later, exactly on my birthday, the Oklahoma City Bombing occurred, where over 150 people were killed in a massive blast. Timothy McVeigh apparently hated the government, and hated how the Waco incident was handled by the government, and the bombing was his way of showing his disdain. Senseless killing.
In 1999 was the Columbine incident, where two psychotic teenagers went on a shooting spree at their high school and killed 12 people, while injuring many more. And in act of cowardice, they killed themselves, denying anyone a sense of justice, but at the same time saving people the trouble of having to catch them.
In 2007, there was the Virginia Tech Massacre, where a Korean-American student went ballistic and went on a psychotic shooting spree, and killed 30-some people before killing himself. This one hit a little bit harder to me, because one, he was a Korean-American kid probably not that much different than what I was like growing up, but took a wrong turn mentally, but also the fact that I actually knew some people that were still students there when it had happened.
Just three years ago in 2010, a BP-owned floating oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded, which resulted in a catastrophic oil spill that took months to repair, and had detrimental environmental effects for years to follow. Already-high gas prices soared even higher, and oil ravaged the beach and tourism industry, causing millions and millions of dollars to ordinary people.
The thing is, these are the ones that stick out the most for me. I don’t really have to go on Wikipedia to cross-reference any of these things, because I remember most of these incidents in my life as it is. All of these catastrophes happened, if not on my actual birthday, but within four days before or after it.
For years, I remember waking up on my birthday, where people were somber, the newscasts were melancholy in remembrance, and seen my share of flags at half-mast in memorandum of those lost in these tragedies. I’m just trying to enjoy a birthday, without having to be reminded of the odd fact that so much bad shit seems to happen around this time of the year, every year. Instead I hear about anniversaries of some of the more recent tragedies, and once things get to nice-round decades, reminders of older ones. Like in three days will be the 20th Anniversary, like it some good fucking thing, of the Waco Fire, that killed over 50 people.
Sometimes, all I can do is laugh at the irony, but it really does kind of suck to know that I’m not the only one who’s aware of this kind of anomaly, and feels the need to hold their breath once this week-span arrives, and hope that nothing catastrophic happens.
I don’t blame if you, if you don’t like this post. Go ahead. Think I’m selfish, inappropriate, or insensitive. I can assure you, whether you choose to believe it or not, that I most certainly am sympathetic to those affected by the Boston Bombings, as well as all the disasters of the past, but I also think it really sucks that time around my birthday always feels like a black cloud of doom and gloom throughout history seems to be hovering over it.
