Beyond tragic.
Via WaPo:
The text messages, too horrible to believe, came as Christina and James Keefe sat with their grown sons at a restaurant in Dorchester. The young men had just run in the Boston Marathon, and were shaken but relieved to have escaped a horrific double-bombing unharmed.
Sneaking glances under the table, James Keefe read the desperate, curt missives from friends and neighbors:
Eight-year-old Martin Richard, son of a well-known, much beloved family of the Dorchester area of Boston, had likely been killed by the bomb that detonated near the marathon’s finish line.
His mom, Denise, and his younger sister, Jane, were also seriously hurt.
Local news reports said Denise had undergone emergency surgery, and Jane suffered a grievous injury to her leg.
Christina Keefe described her family as close friends of the Richard family, who live near them in the Ashmont section of Dorchester.
“He was so polite, composed, older than his years really,” Christina Keefe said of Martin on Tuesday morning. “I can see him now, holding his mom’s arm as she took them on their walks around the neighborhood.”