Cambridge, Massachusetts : Celeste Corcoran, in her yellow “Boston Strong” hat, navigated her way across the field on her artificial legs, a volunteer on each arm to keep her upright.
One of her assistants had a pair of prosthetics of his own.
“Normally you walk around and you see everybody with two legs. Especially in the summertime—all you see is legs,” Corcoran said, pausing to choke back tears. “It's easy to miss yours.
“But when I see everybody here walking and running, it's OK,” she said after a running clinic for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing and other amputees. “I just want to be able to do the things that I did before. ... I feel like I can do it. I'm trying my hardest to enjoy being alive.”
Dozens of amputees showed up at the Harvard athletic fields on a rainy Sunday morning along with their family and physical therapists and other volunteers to learn how to run—or run better—with prosthetic legs. Corcoran, who lost both legs in the explosions at the marathon finish line, wasn't much of a runner before, but she said she hopes that she will someday be able to join in a fun run.
“I've always wanted to be a runner but I used to get shin splints,” she said. “I don't have shins anymore, so I'm hoping,”
The joke has apparently been repeated so often that her daughter is ready for it. Sydney Corcoran, 18, is wearing a matching yellow hat along with ankle-length tights that showed the effects of the shrapnel that scarred her legs but did not require amputation. She was on Boylston Street with her mother when the bombs went off, waiting for her aunt to finish the marathon.
Across the field, a boy with two prosthetic legs, no more than 4 years old, was learning to kick a soccer ball with the carbon fiber blades. Two older boys wrestled playfully.
