Editor’s Note: Danny Bridges is a journalist who covers sports for the Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper.
It really is hard to describe how it feels to be caught up in the immediate aftermath of an explosion.
Thankfully, most people will never experience the shock and the horror of what occurred recently on the Southside of Indianapolis, but many will say they can only imagine what the victims are going through.
While those folks all mean well, the truth is they really cannot even fathom how it suddenly changes your life forever, so when I learned of the recent tragic developments it brought me back front and center to a place I wish I could forget.
In 1975, I was just a typical 15-year-old boy in Greenwood, Ind., living in a blue collar, middle class neighborhood. I had gravitated to sports as a release from an otherwise sleepy Midwestern existence, and with my 16th birthday on the horizon, I anxiously looked forward to obtaining a driver’s license. My father was doing the best he could to raise us alone after cancer took away his wife and the only woman my brother and I had ever loved just four years earlier. It was a challenge but we certainly made the best of it.
That all came to a screeching halt one cold February night when a makeshift bomb constructed with dynamite was attached to our residence by a deranged man who was jealous of the fact that his ex-wife had began a respectful and traditional relationship with my father.
The man worked in an environment in which explosives were routinely available for demolition purposes and was attempting to kill my father. What he did not plan on was my brother sleeping in the very room in which he had attached the bomb to outside the bedroom window. When it detonated it killed him instantly, while causing serious injury to my father.
With the onslaught of emergency personnel and neighbors filing out of their adjacent homes, it quickly became a maddening scene.
While my father was quickly transported to a hospital, I remained there, determined to learn of what had happened and do the best that someone my age could do to deal with the initial shock of it all. Sadly my younger brother was transported to the morgue and the reality sunk in at daylight when I could finally see the rubble that remained behind our home.
While the authorities did a splendid job apprehending the villain who imposed his heinous will on our family, the aftermath that would ensue was equally disturbing. Between the burial of my brother and the long hospitalization and subsequent surgeries my father would have to endure, the nightmare was vividly replayed over and over throughout the coming months, and eventually, years.
So when I saw the initial television reports regarding those impacted recently, I was torn between my concern for them, and perhaps selfishly turning back the painful clock for myself.
The chaos associated with it all simply numbed my mind and in the days following this latest explosion and I found myself wanting to learn more about those who survived.
Obviously, it is not about replacing material items, it is the challenge of refocusing your life back to how it was before the unspeakable event occurred. Dealing with the pain that is associated with death is one emotion, but attempting to move forward and returning to normalcy is quite another.
To this day, sudden loud noises send me to a place where no one should ever have to be mentally. Then there is the way some people will undoubtedly look at you, as they did my father, staring at his cosmetic deformities derived from the blast.
As they move forward, the survivors of this recent tragedy must also try and reconcile what has impacted them, and try to put the pieces of their respective lives back together. Hopefully they will seek the help they may need. While their homes will be rebuilt and their possessions replaced, they have begun the difficult trek for peace of mind and hopefully will overcome the anxiety associated with their fears.
Unfortunately it will be a life-long process for many of them, and as a community we need to do everything we can to assist them. As the investigation continues, the possibility of a criminal indictment looms, and those proceedings can (and will) reopen the wounds that go along with this type of calamity. To those who lost loved ones, I can say with deep conviction that the pain will never subside and you will never forgive those who took them from you. You must however carry on in a manner that reflects the way they lived their life and honor them accordingly. Asking why it happened is only normal, working to accept it is not, and will be most difficult.
Hopefully after reading this, you now know you are not walking alone. I wish you the best and hope to see you someday, be it this side or the other.
Danny Bridges who encourages all to contribute to the Red Cross relief fund established for the victims can be reached at (317) 578-1780 or at Bridgeshd@aol.com.
