End of an era

So tonight we were watching some more of the Royal Wedding (which we'd recorded), but we were of course both also on our computers. Not multi-tasking, maybe multi-recreating? Rocket Boy, looking at Google News, said "Oh, Obama's giving a talk this evening, maybe even right now."

"Do you want to watch it? We can turn off the wedding," I offered generously.

Rocket Boy searched the online TV guide and found CNN, and that's when we heard the news about Osama bin Laden's assassination. Almost 10 years after 9/11, the man is finally gone. We're still watching the TV coverage. There doesn't seem to be very much to say, but they keep saying it over and over and we both kind of want to hear it over and over.

I got kind of teary when they talked about 9/11. But the news reporters got it wrong, I think. They keep saying, "When 9/11 happened, everyone's immediate reaction was anger!"

Anger? That's not what I remember. I remember feeling so terribly terribly sad, unable to get the images of the planes crashing into the towers out of my mind, thinking of all the people who died. Such scary awful deaths, trapped in those impossibly tall buildings. I remember the people who jumped out of windows rather than wait to die. All the firefighters trapped in the buildings, trying to save other people.

Maybe I'm forgetting, but I just don't remember anger. Oh, I know, some people were probably immediately angry, and there was certainly a lot of anger later on, but I think in the beginning it was just devastating sadness.

They keep showing video clips of Osama bin Laden, and what keeps striking me, totally inappropriately, is how good-looking he was when he was younger. Those bedroom eyes. Everything is always so complicated.

So odd that it would be Obama who would get Osama, when Bush wanted to get him soooo badly.

I'm glad they caught him, I'm relieved that he's gone. But I don't feel like celebrating.

I'm just remembering the 9/11 attacks and once again mourning those who were lost.