There’s Boston Strong. There’s Louisville Strong. Then, there’s just plain bad-ass.
Rebekah Gregory proved to be all three last Monday.
That’s when the Louisville native, sporting a T-shirt that read “Rebekah Strong,” ran the final 3.2 miles - on one good leg and one prosthetic leg - of the Boston Marathon on the two-year anniversary of being a victim of the terrorist bombing at the race’s finish line.
“Just to know that I was crossing the finish line on my own foot and I wasn’t in a wheelchair like last year and I wasn’t laying on the pavement fighting for my life like the year before (that),” Gregory, who fell to her knees after crossing the finish line, told ABC News afterward. “I’ve come a long way and I’m just going to keep going because there’s no stopping me.”
In 2013 Gregory was at the finish line of the marathon with her son, Noah, and boyfriend, Pete DiMartino, cheering on DiMartino’s mother when the first of two bombs exploded (three people were killed and 260 others injured). While her son suffered only minor injuries, Gregory and DiMartino suffered more significant injuries. Gregory underwent 17 surgeries before doctors amputated the lower part of her left leg (she was one of 16 marathon victims to lose a limb) in November, seven months after she and DiMartino were married and eight months after she crossed the finish line of the 2014 Marathon in a wheelchair as part of a Tribute Run for survivors and first responders.
During her recovery Gregory, who now lives in Texas, has become a motivational speaker and created a foundation (New Day New Hope), but has still had to clear countless physical and emotional hurdles.
In January the Eastern High School graduate received her prosthetic, which she named “Felicia,” then in February Gregory announced that she and DiMartino were separating. In March she testified in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was found guilty earlier this month on all 30 counts relating to the 2013 bombing. Then last Monday Gregory continued her on-going comeback by running the final 3.2 miles of the 26.2-mile marathon.
“That moment when I got to run past the place where I nearly lost everything, and not stop until I made it across the finish line,” she wrote on her foundation’s Facebook page last Tuesday. “That is the single reason why I was so overcome with emotion when I fell down to my knees at the end. Because to me, by doing that, I was reclaiming my life. I was showing myself that I am not destroyed. And even though I am not up to the 26.2 miles quite yet, what I am...is stronger. And there won’t be a day that goes by that I don’t try to show that because no matter what...I am also very BLESSED. And yesterday was only the beginning….of many many more miles.”
Photo courtesy of Rebekah Gregory DiMartino’s New Day New Hope Facebook Page
