Last year’s tragic end to the Boston Marathon left Roxbury resident and entrepreneur Kai Grant shaken, but that wasn’t enough to keep her from taking on the Boston Marathon again this year.
Grant has been given a number from the Boston Athletic Association and will take on the entire 26.2-mile route on April 21 as part of her “I Will Finish My Race Campaign” to raise funds for her organization Diamond Girls Boston.
Grant was about two blocks away from the finish line when the two bombs exploded and prevented her from finishing her run in the Boston Marathon last year.
“You didn’t want to think it was a bomb. You wanted to think it was cannons. You wanted to think it was celebratory, some type of salute,” Grant said.
For the past three years, Grant has participated in the race running a half marathon to raise funds for Diamond Girls Boston, which works to build self-sufficiency in teenage girls ages 11 to 17 by promoting entrepreneurial thought and action.
Grant described her decision to participate again as “a battle.”
The founder of Lip-Hop Cosmetics didn’t make a definite decision until last December when she saw a news segment highlighting another person who decided participate again.
“For me, it was a struggle,” Grant said. “I had to really say ‘I need to do this. I need to make a spectacle of myself.’”
Grant lived in the South End for a part of her childhood and grew up knowing the Boston Marathon as a part life as a Bostonian. Her thoughts about the marathon centered on togetherness and celebration.
“You feel the spirit. You feel camaraderie. You feel support when people are rooting for you and cheering you on,” Grant said.
Today, traveling down Boylston Street brings different thoughts.
“Every time I go down Boylston something ignites in me,” Grant said. “It’s not fear that overcomes me. It’s just an overwhelming feeling. It’s just something that doesn’t sit right. It’s not something that feels good.”
Upon hearing the bombs and seeing people scatter, blood splattered and the injuries, Grant said she felt guilt, anger, and a sense of responsibility for the family and friends who attended to root her on.
“You go to different countries and this happens every day,” Grant said. “This is nothing that people [in those countries] have not experienced in their every day lives and then to have been that close to death and then to not be hurt the same way others were hurt, you feel guilt to a degree.”
Grant connects the trauma she felt after the bombings to the trauma she believes many of the girls in her program experience and the trauma she feels as a Roxbury resident due the violent acts happening in and around the community.
Sixteen individuals have been victims of homicide in Boston since January, according to data collected by Boston.com.
“When you experience that level of trauma it’s just as devastating or more devastating because it happens on such a regular basis that you can become numb to it. You can become hardened to it and you can lose hope, “Grant said. “A lot of these girls have fathers, uncles, cousins, friends and brothers that have had traumatic acts happen to them which means [the girls are] traumatized.”
Grant said dealing with trauma has organically become a part of her Diamond Girls curriculum.
For Grant, running the marathon this year is a way to overcome her trauma, bring healing to the community and set an example for her group of girls, some of who have shown concern over Grant’s decision to participate.
Grant says running long distances is an act that goes beyond one’s own strength and that participating will help her group go above their own limits.
“You’re giving them ammunition to say ‘I can go beyond and I can tap into my super powers and really do something spectacular,’” Grant said.
