Jane Richard Dancing Again After Death of Brother
April 15, 2014— -- Jane Richard was watching the Boston Marathon from Boylston Street with her whole family when the bombs went off near the finish line.
Jane, then 7, suffered a serious leg injury from shrapnel. Her brother Martin, 8, was killed.
Jane's parents, Denise and Bill, were both injured, leaving only her brother Henry, the eldest son of Denise and Bill, unharmed.
The day marked the first in a long road of recovery for the family that they have documented during the past year on a family blog.
Jane had her leg amputated and had to undergo more than a dozen surgeries over the course of four months at Boston hospitals before being released in August.
"An hour doesn't go by that we don't feel the agony of Martin's death and the senseless way it came about," the family wrote after they returned home together for the first time in August. The Richards picked back up with school and after school sports. They celebrated Christmas somewhere other than their Boston home for the first time, noting that "we snuck away this year, to someplace different, because now everything is different."
Before the bombings, Jane had been an active Irish step dancer. When she was released in August, she went home with a new, prosthetic leg and a pair of crutches.
"Jane continues to be an incredible source of inspiration -- and exhaustion. The loss of her leg has not slowed her one bit, or deterred her in any way," the family wrote. "Watching her dance with her new leg, which has her weight primarily on the other leg, is absolutely priceless."
In March, Jane received a "Cheetah" running leg from an organization called Wiggle Your Toes.
"Never self-conscious and always smiling, Jane has worn it to school several times which speaks to the can-do spirit she has displayed over the last 11 months," the family wrote.
Jane even joined her youth basketball team and has been playing on her new prosthetic, they said. Her elder brother, Henry, is excelling in sixth grade.
The family has started a foundation in Martin's name and will have more than 70 runners competing in this year's marathon in memory of him and to raise funds for the foundation.
"A day doesn't pass when we don't cry over the loss of Martin, but we also laugh when we think about him, which feels like the right way to remember a little boy with a zest for life and a caring heart," they wrote.
