Then and Now

Tonight’s news is still sinking in with me. Osama bin Laden is dead. I don’t even know the last time I thought about Osama bin Laden. Maybe last September; maybe not. Tonight, though, as I’m sure is true with many around the world, he’s on my mind. 

I am so grateful for our military men and women; they go out each day in terrible conditions and do a job most don’t want to do. Those who went in after Osama bin Laden took an incredible risk to seek justice for an incredibly devastating act almost a decade ago. 

In 2001, I was at school when news of the attacks came in; I was in the office as an office aide at the time. At that point in time, nothing anyone could have said or done would have made me understand the impact of 9/11. Mr. Gray and I were dating at the time, and I just remember him saying, “This is going to be big.” I had no clue. None. When was it the TV would be going back to regular programming, again? I’ve been to New York four (five?) times since 9/11, and I’ve never actually been down to Ground Zero. For whatever reason, I have felt a disconnect to the whole thing. I saw the tiles on the fence; they were incredibly moving, but it still wasn’t clicking for me. 

Tonight, I saw on my Twitter feed that President Obama was going to make a speech as early as 9:30 with no hint of what it would be about. A few tweets later, someone posted, “It’s gotta be Bin Laden.” This peaked my interest. I told Mr. Gray to turn on the news so we could see what was going on; about that time, my Twitter feed went crazy with reports of bin Laden being dead. We turned on the news and started hearing the pieced together story that leaked before the President was able to make the announcement. It wasn’t clear what was going on, but, again, my interest was there. It took me almost a decade to get it. 

Maybe I’m just older now. Maybe I’m wiser. It could be that I’m a mom, and I feel like there will be attempts at revenge. Maybe that turns on my “Mommy Instinct” or something. I don’t know what changed in the information that made me feel more connected.

I will continue to pray for our military men and woman and all the behind the scenes work they do. I am very thankful to our soldiers. Thank you! Thank you!

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