Jeff Bauman

I know exactly when my life changed: when I looked into the face of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. It was 2:48 P. M. on April 15, 2013 - one minute before the most high profile terrorist event on United States soil since September 11th - and he was standing right beside me.

Sometimes I don't fully accept it. It's tough. I miss doing old things. I miss shooting hoops with my friends.

By some crazy twist of fate I was able to remember the moments leading up to the bombings, and in the end, it helped people. I'm not a hero; I did what any normal person would do.

I was a normal guy with a job at Costco, thinking about going back to school. I played sports; I hung out with my friends. I wanted to make something of myself, but I didn't know what.

Right when I was lying on the ground and saw my legs, I didn't think first, 'I'm going to die.' I was thinking, 'I'm not going to run again. I can't play basketball. I'm not going to skate.'

I wish I wasn't the face of the victims - three lost near the finish line and hundreds injured - because then everyone would forget about me, and I could recover in peace, and at my own pace.

I have so much work to do every day to get back to my normal life that I can't afford to be angry, even at the bombers. I can't keep looking backward.

Why sit, be negative and be sad and depressed? You got to kind of push everything to the side and just focus on just getting better.

In my eyes, there's heroes I look up to. People who saved me - my caretakers, people at Boston Medical Center. My surgeon. The people that pulled me off that ground, who pulled me out. Those are my heroes. The police. The paramedics. Those are the true heroes.

I see my family every day and I'm starting my own family now. I'm very thankful and grateful and there's nothing but positivity and love in my life.

She liked to drink. Some in the family want to make more of it than that like maybe she needed drinking to take the edge off, but that was the way I always saw it: Mom liked to drink.

I want people to relate to my family, and to just getting through something - getting through loss in general.