David Yas, The Daily Record Newswire
A few weeks ago, as I rummaged through the trunk of my car looking for that wretched ice scraper, the book emerged. It tumbled out of a plastic bag near some empty Coke cans.
It was a paperback about soccer, a book I had bought as a gift for my friend Kevin. I meant to give it to him the next time I saw him, but twice or more I forgot. So it became that thing that is moved from backpack to briefcase and so forth, until I just forgot where it was.
And now I can’t give it to him.
In 2013, Kevin was at the finish line of the Boston Marathon when the bombs went off. The blast blew Kevin and his parents, Mary Jo and Bill, in different directions. During the ensuing chaos, rescue workers whisked the three away — to three separate hospitals.
Kevin, 35 at the time, had sustained a head injury and considerable damage from shrapnel. The next few hours were hellish and confusing for him. He asked a rescue worker whether anyone had been killed in the bombings. The worker lowered his head, silent.
Kevin feared the worst. Within hours he was on the phone to his brother, Andrew, a psychologist in Oregon.
Kevin told Andrew: “Turn on the TV. There’s been an explosion. Mom, dad and I were injured. You need to come out to Boston — and you need to prepare yourself for the fact that mom and dad might be dead.”
Later that day, Kevin, suffering the residual effects of a concussion, experienced a seizure. His brain had swelled to an untenable degree.
But he survived the day, later reuniting with his mom, who had injuries similar to Kevin’s, and his dad, who had lost a leg.
I met Kevin a few months later through professional circles and got to know the family. Kevin was devoting his time to helping his parents recover. He continued coaching his beloved soccer to teenage kids. He set out to get a job in finance, having relocated to Boston from Chicago prior to the marathon.
And he ran the next two marathons himself, raising money for the Greg Hill Foundation and for Boston Medical Center.
About nine months ago he was sitting in federal court in Boston, listening to testimony in the case of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Kevin said he wanted some closure.
Perhaps it never came.
Kevin described the scene as painful, as he saw fellow survivors he had befriended relive the anguish of the explosions. There were videos and pictures presented that had not been released earlier; it was as if someone turned on the worst sort of time machine. Kevin saw new images of himself and his parents, stunned and bloodied at the instant their lives changed indelibly.
I stayed in touch with Kevin over the past couple years. He would smirk at his father’s stubborn nature as Bill learned to walk on a prosthetic. He would gently complain to me about his know-it-all soccer players, whom I’m sure he secretly adored. And he always spoke softly and bravely about how his life had changed in April 2013.
Just about a week before last Christmas I was mindlessly scrolling through my Facebook account when something made me gasp. There it was, a message from Kevin’s brother.
Kevin was gone.
He had passed away from a sudden illness at the age of 37.
Mourners packed a tiny church in Bolton, shuffling in from the cold, to remember Kevin. Those young men he had coached stood off to the side, in rumpled coats and ties, their baby faces sullen.
“Beyond shocked,” Bill said softly to me as I offered condolences. “Beyond shocked.”
The White family, clinging to privacy, has said little about the cause of Kevin’s death. Of course, no one can fault them. But it seemed to me that Kevin’s life was irreparably changed on that horrible day in a way that never quite reversed itself. He carried a burden to the grave, and his story lingers as a reminder that there are clear limits as to what the justice system can deliver upon. Some things are just beyond retribution.
Kevin always said the silver lining to the tragedy of 2013 was that he got to meet the survivors and develop deep friendships with people who would otherwise be strangers, and that his life was richer for it.
And indeed, I’m richer for having known Kevin. One day this spring, I’ll take a drive out to see Bill and Mary Jo. I’m already looking forward to it. I think they might like to have the paperback book that reminds me of my friend.
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Attorney David L. Yas is a partner at USA500 Clubs and manages the New England territory of the organization. He also hosts The Boston Podcast, a weekly program hosted at masslawyersweekly.com.
