Carrying candles and wearing any Boston clothing they had with them, students on the Boston University Sydney, Australia program gathered at a vigil on Wednesday to mourn the victims of the Boston Marathon.
At the event, organized by program staff, more than 40 students wrote messages of love and support to victims and students and then walked together to a nearby park for a moment of silence.
“Hardly anyone at my internship site talked about the events,” said Cara Polom, a College of Communication junior enrolled in the Sydney program. “I wish I had been home with my family and friends so that we could comfort each other since this event has such an impact on us.”
Polom, who lived most of her life in Massachusetts before attending BU, said Boston holds an important place in her heart.
“I’ve always viewed it as a safe place, my home,” she said. “Going to work for the next nine hours was the hardest part because reality began to sink in and I was surrounded by people so far removed from the situation.”
Students abroad in Sydney were not the only ones to partake in the mourning of marathon victims. Despite the distance, several students currently abroad said they continue to feel a personal connection to Boston and the community in wake of the tragedy.
COM senior Noah Eberhart, who is a member of the BU Los Angeles program, said it was a surreal experience to view the news of Monday’s explosions at the Boston Marathon from across the country.
“It’s an international event and it’s a big event, but it’s also an intimate, very Bostonian kind of affair that people who don’t live in Boston and who aren’t runners don’t know about,” he said. “… To see something that I had experienced in the past as this wonderful time spent with friends, to see this huge news story and an act of terrorism — I couldn’t believe it.”
For Eberhart, it was especially difficult to see his home-away-from-home in such a disastrous state.
“Seeing the streets on television that I know so well, that I’ve walked down many times and seeing the blood splattered on the streets and the patients, it’s so familiar,” he said. “But not being there — I wish I was back so I could actually check up on my friends and talk to people … It’s as if it’s a dream, like it’s not real.”
Sasha Herbert, a College of Arts and Sciences senior enrolled in BU’s Washington, D.C. program, said she was in Boston Sunday, one day before the Marathon and the explosions.
“When I realized where the bombs were, the locations, it shocked me because just the day before, at the same time and in the same place, I was standing there waiting for my friend right where the explosion happened,” she said. “I wished I was there with everyone in Boston.”
Although Herbert said she felt more affected by news of the tragedy than her coworkers, she was able to find solace in other BU students who were separated from Boston at the time.
“I feel like a lot of people I work around in D.C. didn’t make as much of a personal connection to it because they weren’t in Boston,” she said. “A lot of them were into it for a while and, after a while, stopped following it. I was following it constantly because I felt a personal connection to Boston … I felt a little alone until I got with the other students.”
Sarah Zeis, a School of Management and CAS sophomore studying abroad in Geneva, Switzerland, said news of the attacks coming out of Boston left her stunned and worried.
“[We felt] disconnected, helpless, impatient, mostly since we were so dependent on the media for our information,” she said in an email. “The most difficult part is seeing all of the media attention that the bombings are getting. I’ve always known what a great day Marathon Monday was for me, but watching the rest of the world make sense of, and report on, the same day was surreal.”
Polom said she remains confident that the city she loves will find a way to remain united and come back from the moment of darkness.
“It’s going to be very hard to go back to Boston, especially when I walk down Boylston Street again for the first time,” she said. “This event will always be ingrained in the back of my mind, but Boston is a strong city — we’ll get through this.”
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