Quite a week

Well, this week has been pretty event-filled for sure.  It has been world-changing, game-changing, and yet thought-provoking as well.  So forgive me the length as I share my perspective.

Like everyone in the rest of the world, all I could say early this week was "Wow."  Last Sunday evening, it was about 10:35 pm and I was up watching tv.  Ok, truth be told I was watching, gulp, one of "The Real Housewives" shows on the DVR- I know, I know, but I love them for some reason, lol!  Anyway, after that comes on "Watch What Happens Live" with one of the funniest people, Andy Cohen.  Its usually a lighthearted, playful show that recaps the Housewives episodes and is not to be taken seriously at all.  Well, that was until last Sunday.  Amazingly enough, it was Andy Cohen who broke the news that the White House was reporting that OBL (I am deciding to not write his name from here on out because he doesn't deserve to be remembered) had been located and killed.  I heard it, but it didn't quite process.  I thought "I'll just look online and see what the news channels are saying".  Well, when I looked at the computer, Facebook was going nuts!  I saw loads of posts from my friends (not just FB "friends", but my actual longtime friends) about the same thing.  I read them a couple of times- very quickly, mind you- and then I bolted downstairs to our rec room where my hubby was finishing up some work.  I was calling for him and arrived breathless and apparently a little pale.  He looked at me strangely until I said "They found OBL and he's dead".  We kinda looked at each other for a few seconds as it sunk in for him too.  He couldn't believe it either.  I related the other details I knew and then we went out and watched President Obama's news conference confirming it all.  Although the details obviously changed and became refined during the next week (heck, we're still learning more!), the impact of that event did not.

Now, I know 9/11 changed everyone in the US and the world, but for us it was intensely personal, but not in the way you would think.  It wasn't that we knew anyone personally that was injured or killed in the attacks, or even in the military actions that followed.  It was that 9/11 happened exactly 2 days before our son was born.

Let's paint a picture: I was gi-normous at the time, a full week overdue and into complete beached-whale mode when I saw the planes fly into the World Trade Center.  In fact, my dear hubby even thought I was mistaken that morning because, he thought, my pregnancy hormones were apparently making me delusional, lol.  I remember calling him at his office and telling him I saw a plane fly into the Trade Center.  A 737, I said (later of course to be id'd as a 767).  My sweet, patient husband said, gently, but a little patronizing "Are you sure it wasn't just a little commuter plane?" I got a little huffy and said "I may be pregnant but I'm not a complete idiot- I know what a jet looks like.  Geez!" lol lol! Ok, its a bit humorous now, but at the time it was anything but.

The uncertainty and fear that filled those days were so surreal as we prepared to welcome the most precious gift God has ever given to us.  I went into the hospital the next day and Case was born the following morning.  I had fully expected- selfishly now, looking back- to watch movies, Michigan football, and all sorts of things while celebrating the birth of our child.  Instead I watched people pleading for their loved ones, doomsayers, and everything in between; all amongst the most horrific images I had ever experienced.  I experienced the absolute joy and love of my new son and the absolute heartbreak as I saw others who had lost or couldn't find theirs.  It was almost too much and yet I felt I couldn't look away.  I took breaks from the tv, but would ultimately come back since it was all that was on.....every channel....all day and night.  When even ESPN has it on, its a big story.

We all know where we were.  We all know that feeling and still get choked up and tearful when we see images of the Twin Towers, Shanksville, and the Pentagon.  At least I do.  I remember even crying while watching an Elmo eppy with Case a few years later because he went to a FDNY firehouse and I couldn't help wondering if those brave, funny, sweet men who talked to a little red Muppet were gone.  It was awful.

And we all knew who was responsible.  And over the years, we waited and waited.  We trusted our military and our government that they would find this heinous, evil man and bring him to justice.  And yet, the time grew long.  Almost a full decade passed, even more for those that suffered through the US Cole, the embassy bombings, and the first Trade Center attack.  I think many of us had lost faith or let it slip from our foremost mind as the day-to-day things took over.

TSA agent that insisted on patting Case down (this doesn't apply to children under 12, btw).  It meant no one could ever see us off at our gate, that there were ever-changing and confusing rules on what you could take and not take, and overall it made Mom and Dad much more stressed than they had been before 9/11.  People were crabbier, less trustful, and overall wary.  Case only knows this kind of world and its because of OBL.

And yet, as a Christian I struggled with how I should feel about this man's death.  I wanted to be joyful, but the reality was I was not.  I was relieved to be sure.  I was blessed to find a fantastic article by the Rev. James Martin.  Here is the link: Rev. Martin

In it was printed the Vatican's official statement, which really helped me gain perspective.  The statement, as Rev Martin says, "balances the desire for an end to terror with the sanctity of life, no matter how odious the person."  It reads "OBL {my abbreviation, not the Vatican's}, as we all know, bore the most serious responsibility for spreading divisions and hatred among populations, causing the deaths of innumerable people, and manipulating religions for this purpose. In the face of a man's death, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibilities of each person before God and before men, and hopes and works so that every event may be the occasion for the further growth of peace and not of hatred."

Wow.  So I have taken a week and after more thinking and praying, I will say I do not rejoice in the fact a man was killed.  I am happy however that this man is unable to do anymore evil and has left this earth.  I leave it to God to enact any punishment and/or judgment against him.   I know there may be others to try and take his place- I mean Satan's army is always active, is it not?- and we must always be on guard.  However, I will now use my energies to try and teach my child to live in a world without OBL, just as I taught him to live in a world altered by OBL since the first breath he took in this world.  It'll be a refreshing change.

How amazing, world-changing, gut-wrenching, memory-evoking, and ultimately cathartic was the aftermath of Sunday night.  And there is a part of me that finds it no small coincidence that OBL was discovered on the same day Poland's favorite son John Paul II was beatified and named Blessed.  Blessed John Paul II was a man of peace and a man that knew when evil must be rooted out and conquered.  Perhaps he had a hand in the efforts that began Friday.  Perhaps that 2nd miracle needed for sainthood occurred right under our very noses.  Quite a week indeed.