Celeste Corcoran returns to the Boston Marathon finish line for the first time.
Celeste Corcoran returns to the Boston Marathon finish line for the first time. It’s nine degrees in Boston. Our ragtag production crew is standing at the Boston Marathon finish line before sunrise, stamping our feet as our toes burn. Months earlier, this stretch of Boylston Street had been sealed off by police tape. Now, somehow, through favors and persistence and a little bit of naïve belief, we’ve convinced the Boston Public Library and the Boston Police Department to let us do a photo shoot. In a few months, the city will mark the first anniversary of the bombing. Today is…freezing. I’m wondering if any of the marathon bombing survivors will show. My friend Jen has spent months working her contacts trying to get survivors to participate in a Dear World photograph. We’ve gotten a lot of no’s. Not angry no’s. Tired no’s. The kind that come from people who have had journalists show up, ask them to relive the worst day of their lives, and then publish something that feels incomplete or wrong. Trust doesn’t move at the speed of deadlines, it moves at the speed of healing. This is one of my first truly big shoots. Not because of the logistics, or the access, or the symbolism of the finish line. It’s big because I feel responsible to get it right. The cold sharpens everything. Tripods burn hands. The wind cuts through jackets. Even the police officers move differently. Celeste is making her first return to the finish line. I see it before she says anything. Her body slows as she approaches the painted yellow stripe across Boylston Street. I take her jacket. “Let’s do this,” she says. For more than 30 minutes, onlookers peer, cops wave cars past us, while Celeste sits on the cold, wet, and dark finish line. To this day, she calls this experience a defining moment of her recovery. What I’ve come to understand now is that healing takes courage. Standing in the cold is courageous. So is trusting a stranger. So is reframing the worst day of your life. Most people quit here. If the work matters enough though, you stay, you keep trying. “It was about reclaiming that space in a positive way,” Celeste tells me, “I took back control. I chose to do this and the heck with everybody else.” Sincerely, Robert X. Fogarty PS: We help leaders see their people, develop new values and deliver transformational keynote experiences. If you’re looking for that in 2026 or 2027, talk to our team and learn more at https://robertxfogarty.com PSS: Me and Celeste!
