Day: May 2, 2011

Osama Bin Laden is dead. For those of you who went to bed before the report came out last night and haven’t yet tuned into the media this morning because you like to use my blog as the supreme source of all things newsworthy ( 😉 ), let me repeat – the motherfucker is DEAD!! (sorry, i do use curse words, and in this instance i think it’s highly appropriate) The mastermind behind the 9/11 terror attacks has finally been killed, nearly a decade later, and I, for one, could not be more pleased. I will never forget where I was when I heard the news that gave me goosebumps last night – standing in my bedroom, getting ready for bed after D had one of the worst screaming nights of her life so far. I will also never forget what I was doing on 9/11, because I was there that day.

I came out of the subway in the World Trade Center right as the first plane struck the building.

I was 5 blocks away when the second plane struck the other tower.

I wandered my way through the streets of lower Manhattan in total confusion about what was actually happening as the subways and ferries shut down, stranding me on the island.

I looked up and saw the flames and smoke pouring from the majestic buildings.

I watched in utter disbelief as the first tower came crashing down in a mountain of crumpled steel and ash (and, horrifyingly enough, thousands of bodies).

I ran in sheer terror as the cloud of noxious smoke, dust, ash, and who knows what else from that building charged through the narrow streets on which we were already amassed, trying to avoid being smothered and trampled.

I felt elation when the mother of my friend at whose apartment a couple of us camped out for the afternoon finally got a call through on his land line and I was able to give her my dad’s phone number to call him and tell him I was ok.

I felt immense guilt and sadness when my dad told me they found my youngest sister in an empty study hall classroom in high school that morning after hearing the news of the attacks, silently crying because she was afraid I was dead (that thought still does and probably always will make my cry when i picture her there).

I walked miles through the deserted streets that evening trying desperately to find a subway train that was running back to my home in Jersey City, across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

I was so incredibly fortunate to have been spared that day and make it back to my apartment that night, exhausted and delusional with fear.

I smelled the odor of the smoldering pit where the towers once stood for months and months and months after that day, a gruesome and constant reminder of what happened there.

That man stole so many lives that beautiful Tuesday morning and burned a permanent hole in the history of this country. I will never, ever forget the magnificent sense of American pride I witnessed after those attacks as the nation banded together in an effort to remember those who were lost and vow to get the villain who did this. And now we finally have. Am I naive enough to believe that now terrorism will just magically end? Of course not, duh. But this is definitely one victory for the good guys.

Welcome to Hell, Bin Laden. I’m pretty sure there’s a huge and extremely fiery seat waiting to cook your ass for all eternity.