Bin Laden Dead

I was half asleep last night when my husband woke me to tell me that the president was making some kind of unprecedented announcement. And as the minutes passed, I wasn't sure I understood him correctly... Frank was saying that Bin Laden was dead. That we finally found him and took care of him.
As President Obama addressed the nation, I was still processing the news. I tried to parse what he was saying... they found him in some kind of mansion in a city outside of Islamabad. Obama referred to it as a "compound." US forces went in. They engaged in a 40-minute fire-fight. No Americans were hurt. The president called the president of Pakistan. It's over.
This morning, the only feeling I have is one of confused relief.
I was in New York on September 11. I will never forget listening to News Radio 88 as I drove into work. It was a beautiful early fall day; sunny with clear blue sky. Tom Kaminsky in the CBS helicopter over Manhattan was saying something about smoke coming out of the upper floors of one of the World Trade Center buildings. By the time I reached the West Side Highway, the second tower had been hit and the news was breaking of a hit on the Pentagon. It wasn't a mistake; it was some kind of coordinated attack. The highway was closed in front of me. I rolled down my window and exchanged a few words with a guy in the car next to me. Something along the lines of "Did you just hear what I heard?" And I knew right then that this would be the most important day in my professional career... I had to get to work.
I managed to make it to the exit at W. 158th street and wind my way down Riverside Drive to my parking lot around the corner from the CBS building on W. 57th Street.
By the time I got to my office, there was a wierd stillness in spite of the sirens wailing from police cars and firetrucks headed downtown. Or maybe it just seemed that way as people who would normally be rushing to work or school or wherever were shocked into disbelief...
My daughters were home with our sitter. I couldn't reach them. My husband was in Scotland of all places, on a trip with his mother. No way to reach him. I felt isolated in a city with 8 million people.
It was one of those days that you just do what you do, and hope that it will all turn out OK in the end. An hour or so later, we found out that it wouldn't be OK... Thousands died in a plume of smoke and debris so thick that we'd never be able to find them all. And we found out we were not invulnerable. And the unease would last...
For more than a week I was sleepless as invisible but loud fighter jets flew through the night skies. Eventually the jets left. And I was able at some point to get back to sleep. But the underlying anxiety has always been there.
Bin Laden and his minions won-- that day and for way too many years later. We invaded Afghanistan, then Iraq. We've spent trillions of dollars and lost thousands more lives in a battle against foes who had no official army or headquarters-- just a figurehead who for some reason we couldn't catch. Ten years later-- we finally got him.
I never went back to the World Trade Center site. Ever. It's become a tourist destination and I'm now a tourist in a city I once called home. But I still don't want to go back.
I wish I thought that Bin Laden's demise meant we could stop feeling vulnerable... but that beautiful and horrible September morning took that away forever.