Roseann Sdoia - Perfect Strangers: Friendship, Strength, and Recovery After Bostons Worst Day

ON APRIL 15, 2013 , a dark line was drawn through the middle of my life. Before that day, I was a single professional woman living in the North End of Boston. I vacationed in Europe, skied at Sunday River and Killington, ran 5- and 10K fun runs with my friends, and spent most summer weekends on Nantucket or in Newport, Rhode Island. That was the life in which I had two legs.

On that day, I found myself on the other side of that line, half sitting, half lying on the sidewalk. After a few dazed moments, my eyes began to focus and found the pool of blood gathering underneath me and dripping off the curb onto Boylston Street. That was the day of the Boston Marathon bombing, which killed 3 people and injured 264 others. It was also the day that I lost my right leg.

Two years later, almost to the day, I found myself sitting in a modest living room in a working-class neighborhood in Boston, eating a piece of gluten-free pizza, sipping red wine, and looking across the table at three people whose lives had also been irrevocably changed that day and who are now as familiar and as dear to me as those Ive known my whole life.

Im not sure exactly when it was that we became a familyBoston police officer Shana Cottone, firefighter Mike Materia, Northeastern University student Shores Salter, and I. All I know is that we shared an experience that has left each of us forever changed. And while most people who were there that day remember it with only horror, outrage, and sorrow, we four can now also see it through the lens of the love and support that formed in the wake of that atrocity.

That night, over pizza and wine, we did something we rarely do. We compared notes about that daywhat we remembered of the bombing and its immediate aftermath.

I remember thinking you had the whitest teeth Id ever seen, Shana told me, and we all laughed. Shana has since quit, but at the time she chewed tobacco, and the color of her teeth showed it.

I remember you asking if we were taking Storrow Drive to Mass General, and I was like, Wow, lady, let the driver drive, Mike said. I couldnt believe you were backseat driving even with your leg blown off!

We all laughed because Mike knows what a terrible backseat driver I am. He reached over and lightly touched my left leg where it rested against his on the couch. That simple gesture has brought me more comfort and reassurance than I would ever have thought possible.

I remember you saying, I dont think I have my leg, Shores said, and my heart absolutely sank to the bottom of my stomach. Quick tears came to his eyes. I reached across the coffee table and held on to his arm.

Ill never forget that, he added quietly, his head down and slowly shaking back and forth.

And I remember feeling, for one quick instant, as I lay on the pavement looking up at the faces hovering over me, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz: here are the three people who will get me back alivemy Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man. Thats what I remember.

Would I like my leg back? Of course.

Does Shana wish her patrol of the barricades along Boylston Street had involved the typical routine of boisterous college kids and woozy runners? Obviously.

Mike wishes he hadnt had to transport a bloodied and shell-shocked victim to the hospital in the back of a police paddy wagon, holding her hand and telling her she wasnt going to die.

And Shores wishes the most memorable moments of his sophomore year in college were acing his exams and spring break in San Diego, not the traumatic events of that day.

But none of us would trade what weve gained for what weve lost. Shana, Shores, Mike, and I are all grateful for what weve found in each other. Our lives are filled with more joy, fun, and love than we could have believed.

I am not just telling my story. I am telling our storyeach of the people who was on the front line, literally, in saving my lifemy three wonderful new friends as well as the doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters, coworkers, and a few of my oldest and dearest friends who were there with me watching the marathon that day and whose love and bravery inspire me constantly. I quite literally wouldnt be here without them.

And this is a story about my favorite day in my favorite city in the world and how, in an instant, that day went from being pure celebration to desperate survival. For those of us who made it off the sidewalk that horrific day, and those who made sure we did, this book is about taking back our favorite day while never forgetting those who were lost.