In this May 14, 2013 file photo, Boston Marathon bombing survivor Roseann Sdoia, from the North End neighborhood of Boston, is hugged and lifted off the ground by Boston firefighter Mike Meteria as she leaves Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston. Meteria was part of a group of first responders who brought Sdoia to the hospital after she lost part of her right leg in an explosion near the race's finish line. The same first responders were on hand for Sdoia's departure from the Boston hospital. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
BOSTON (AP) — Every time Roseann Sdoia comes home, she must climb 18 steps — six stairs into the building, 12 more to her apartment. It is an old building in Boston's North End, with doors that are big and heavy, not an easy place for an amputee to live.
When she left the hospital, a month after the Boston marathon bombing, she had a choice: She could find another place to live, one more suitable for someone who wears a prosthetic that replaces most of her right leg. Or, she could stay.
"Early on when all this happened, so many people were telling me to move out of the city and move out of my apartment because of the stairs and I don't have an elevator and parking is not very convenient," she recalls. "But I have been able to get past all of that."
In that, she mirrors Boston itself.
"I have to tell you, honestly, Boston is a better city now than it was before," says Thomas Menino, Boston's former mayor. "People learned how to deal with each other, they had to deal with a tragedy."
Not that it's been easy. Three people were killed at last year's Boston Marathon, and more than 260 were injured, and the legacy of trauma and lost limbs remains — as does the shock of having endured a terrorist attack on Marathon Monday. Nor can Bostonians forget the fear that gripped a city locked down in the midst of a manhunt.
But Boston has been able to get past all of that. Copley Square is no longer littered with impromptu tributes to the dead and injured; they're now on display in an exhibit at the Boston Public Library, where Robert White of Lynn saw meaning in every teddy bear and pair of sneakers: "Every last one of the items says 'Boston Strong' or 'I will return next year.'"
