Brothers take recovery one step at a time
Family bond keeps them strong during long road to rebuilding their lives
STONEHAM, MASS.— When two bombs transformed last year’s Boston Marathon into a war zone, the Norden family absorbed a double dose of grief. J.P., 34, and his brother Paul, 32, both strapping construction workers who were there to cheer on a friend, each lost a leg in the carnage.
Since then, they have slowly been rebuilding their lives. After lengthy hospital stays and more than 50 surgeries between them, both are walking on prosthetic legs. They talk of starting a roofing business together. Both have moved out of their mother’s house in this working-class suburb and are living with their girlfriends. Paul is engaged.
The Nordens do not want to dwell on what happened or be defined by it. But the first anniversary of the bombings last April15 — which killed three people, wounded at least 260 and robbed 16 of various limbs — is pulling them in. The occasion has assumed enormous symbolic significance as the survivors and Boston itself are determined to show their defiance and resilience.
Because the Nordens are promoting a book about their experience, the demands on their time have intensified. For them, the anniversary is a hump to get over. For now, the brothers have no time to go to the gym. They have postponed needed surgeries. Paul and his fiancée, Jacqui Webb, who was also injured in the blast, have delayed planning their wedding.
Liz Norden, 51, a single mother of five, said that with her boys, as she calls them, on the mend, she has begun to grieve.
“Now is the time where everything comes into play — my emotions, their emotions, the anniversary, the media,” she said. “It builds up. I cry now at the drop of a hat.”
They are all drawn inexorably back to those horrifying moments on that spring day last year when, as Liz put it, their lives changed “in the blink of an eye.”
The first explosion, a block from where they were standing, confused J.P., Paul and Webb. As other spectators, screaming, began to flee, they tried to do the same. Paul and J.P. started to hoist Webb over metal barricades.
Twelve seconds later a second bomb exploded outside the Forum restaurant, near the Nordens and 8year-old Martin Richard, one of those killed in the blast. J.P. lay on the sidewalk. “I tried to get up on this leg first,” he said the other day, gesturing to his right leg. “I couldn’t. And I looked down and it was gone and I couldn’t get up. My pants were on fire. My shirt was on fire.”
He rolled over to smother the flames and was quickly surrounded by medics and bystanders who whipped off their shirts and belts to apply as tourniquets to both his legs. He was soaked in blood. By the time he arrived at the hospital, he was barely alive.
Paul was near J.P., sitting up but dazed. He stared at his right leg, which was off on its own, lying in the street with other detritus from the blast.
“My mind wanted me to reach for it, but my body wouldn’t let me,” he recalled.
The blast propelled Webb into the street, where she landed on her hands and knees. Her hands were burning so hot that her rings began to melt, and her right leg was gouged with shrapnel.
The brothers were taken to different hospitals. Both later recuperated at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. J.P.’s girlfriend, Kelly Castine, stayed with him all 45 nights that he was hospitalized; Jonathan Norden, 28, the youngest of the brothers, stayed with Paul all 31 nights of his hospitalization. The One Fund Boston, a fundraising effort for the bombing victims, distributed more than $61 million last summer to 230 people. The Norden brothers each received $1.2 million, and Webb received $600,000. Given their lifetime medical expenses, the brothers are saving that money. “I would be scared to use it or blow it,” J.P. said. “I don’t know what my life will bring, I don’t know how work will be, I don’t know what type of job I’ll be capable of working.” It is odd having to dedicate their so-called windfalls to something they would rather not have and are still getting used to. This is especially true for J.P. Although his amputation was below the knee and considered less traumatic than his brother’s, he was more gravely injured overall and took much longer to get back on his feet. Paul started walking on his new leg on June 23; J.P. could not do so until the beginning of March.
“I don’t know what my life will bring. . . . I don’t know what type of job I’ll be capable of working.” J.P. NORDEN BOSTON MARATHON VICTIM
J.P. is anticipating the day when a leg transplant will be possible. His doctor said the procedure might be available to him within a decade. But he cautioned that J.P. might be so accustomed to his prosthesis by then that he may not want someone else’s leg or to go through the trauma of a transplant. “If you asked me now, I’d probably take someone else’s leg,” J.P. said. “But if you ask me in 10 years, I probably won’t.” Liz moved into a handicap-accessible house a few months after the marathon. But when Paul and J.P. first got out of the hospital, they went to her former house with bedrooms upstairs, giving Liz an endless work- out. Paul could hardly find the words to describe all that his mother had done. “She’s meant the world to me my whole life,” he said. “I suffer from a lot of anxiety stuff, and she’s just always there for me.”
Liz won the “Unstoppable Mom” contest on Live With Kelly and Michael last month, winning a trophy and $100,000. She plans to start a non-profit to help her sons and others who lose legs.
The publication of the brothers’ book, Twice as Strong, has pulled all the Nordens into the media swirl. They know that to promote the book, revenue from which will defray their medical expenses, they must be available.
And they want to use the exposure to thank the thousands who have donated time and money to improve their lives.
“You realize what good people there are in the world,” said J.P. “You shouldn’t wait for a tragedy to have to know that, but that’s what it took for me to find that out.”