Historic! Osama bin Laden is DEAD!

Sometimes we have strange (but true) connections to events. It varies in degrees, but I came awful close to being a murdered victim of the maniac America hunted for near a decade. Even more bizarre is the fact that it was something I was planning to do for Natalie Wood that brought me close to a tragic end from this evil man's plan.

Tonight regularly scheduled programs were interrupted to announce that President Obama was going to address the nation from the White House to talk about something about national security. At first, it was a bit frightening, as all wondered what could possibly warrant such a rare thing. In my home, several of us sat guessing at what the announcement could be. I guessed it right before the news broke that the USA had Osama bin Laden's body. We had finally caught and killed the monster that was behind killing so many of our own.

I have mentioned here before that I wrote a manuscript about the 9/11 tragedy. What had compelled me to do so was because I had been booked to fly out of Newark Airport to California on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. That flight turned out to be Flight 93, the plane that went down in Shanksville, PA. Dennis and I had agreed to interview aboard the Splendour in Hawaii for Inside Edition that year. After a disagreement with the producer (which is mentioned in GNGS), we canceled the interview and trip. Suzanne Finstad's book had just been released and we had looked forward to the interview, but thank goodness we changed our minds, or I would not have been around to finish Goodbye Natalie (and my family would have lost me).  I would have perished with a group of heroes, but I still have nightmares about how close I came to tragedy. In the occasional dream, I'm looking down the aisle of the plane, wondering what's going on, while terrorists are telling people to stay quiet.

Well, we all know what happened to those brave souls who technically are the first to have fought back against terrorism that morning.

After canceling the flight, I agreed to go to Manhattan that Tuesday instead, with Alicia, the editor of the magazine I worked for. We had talked about having breakfast at the top of the tower at 8:30 am. My gas pedal acted up that morning so I canceled the trip to New York, too. Alicia canceled, too, because I couldn't go. Thank goodness we were home and safe instead of in the city that tragic day, possibly in the tower at the exact moment the planes plowed into them.

It was too much to think about, my two misses, so I devoted a year to interviewing other near-misses and people who were in the midst of the tragedy, or affected by it (as we all were). It was a hard year. Our modern nation had never come together as we did in the aftermath of that tragic day. Now, 10 years later, we also have never been so separated. Having "blue" and "red" states and all the other nonsense we've witnessed does not exemplify a united nation.

Tonight, people are cheering in the streets of New York City and in Washington D.C., and probably in other USA cities as well. The Pakistanians had danced in the streets and passed around candy the day America was attacked. Pakistan is where bin Laden was killed. Poetic justice.
I am not sorry this maniac is dead. I am not sorry one bit.
I hope the surviving friends and family members of those who were killed on 9/11/01 feel at least a twinge of justice even though it took almost 10 years for this historic news.

America is our home. I wish for unity and peace, for always, but I realize how idealistic such a wish sounds.
In the meantime, and again, I am not sorry Osama bin Laden is DEAD.  I also admit that I hope he saw it coming, if even for but a moment.