9 Years, 7 Months, 21 Days

‎”I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” -Martin Luther King, Jr

I didn’t find out about bin Laden’s capture until this morning, when I was on my way to work.  When I heard the NPR announcers speaking somberly about al-Qaeda and 9/11, I was initially confused–Is it some kind of anniversary?–and then, for just a second, starkly afraid that some new awful thing had happened in the U.S.

I was in DC on 9/11, working in the same place I work now (I took a few years off from the madness in between.)  It’s just a few steps from the Capitol.  I was late to work on that shiny blue September day, and I was in a cab when NPR began talking about a plane running into one of the Twin Towers.  Like everyone, I thought it was a simple pilot error.  By the time I made it up to my office and dropped my stuff, my co-workers had gathered in the boss’ office–the only room with cable–to watch CNN.  We were standing together when the second plane hit, and I’ll never forget how the air whooshed out of the room all at once. Something terrible has happened. It’s funny how you know, even when nothing really terrible has ever really happened in your life before.

The jumble of information and erroneous reports that filled the rest of that morning feel like a dream now, but I know they weren’t. The radio said there was a bomb at Union Station.  They said the State Department was on fire.  That a plane had hit the Pentagon, and that fires were burning all over the mall. They said the fourth plane was headed for the White House–no, the Capitol–no, it had careened into the ground in Pennsylvania.

We left the office, of course.  I rode with a friend–no trains were running, and the bridges over the Potomac were closed.  People outside the city couldn’t get in, and people inside couldn’t get out, and when the car finally pulled out of the garage, after an interminable time waiting in a line of traffic, cut off from the news because we were underground, the sidewalks were teeming with people trying to get home.  My fingertips were numb with adrenaline, and just after we pulled out of the garage we heard a huge explosion.  The mass on the sidewalk flinched and cowered in unison, and a starburst of panic flared in my chest, spreading icy rays under my ribs and squeezing my heart.  My god, I thought, we are under attack.  I am in a city that is being attacked. I found out later that what we’d heard was a sonic boom as fighter jets scrambled above the city.

I lived with my sister, and neither of us had a cell phone, and all of the landlines were jammed.  I went home and packed two backpacks, with sweatpants and t-shirts and socks and sneakers and all the cash we had on hand.  I went to meet her at the bar where she was working in Woodley Park, thinking that we needed to be together in case we had to flee.  We didn’t have a car, so I guessed we’d have to walk.  To where?  Ohio?  I don’t know.

Until the shooting, that was the most frightened I’d ever been.  It’s the only two times in my life I’ve really tasted terror, felt it bubble in my veins, caustic and burning.

Remember how they said that the emergency rooms in New York would be overrun with casualties…and then they weren’t?

Remember running that mental inventory of your friends who worked in New York or in the Pentagon and wondering where they were, and if they were safe?

Remember, afterwards, how we were all supposed to have yards of plastic sheeting and duct tape on hand, to seal ourselves in one room of our house in case of chemical or biological attack?

Remember that time you considered buying an iodine pill to have on hand in case your house or office was within the fallout zone of a dirty bomb attack?

Remember how we all decided to stay in DC anyway, even if the other shoe was going to drop at some point, and then how we all collectively lost our shit during the sniper spree, walking zigzag down the road and lounging behind trees at the bus stop?

I do, but I still can’t whip up any glee over bin Laden’s death. I feel sad, and somber, and my morning jolt of terror when I heard his name on the news echoed the terror I felt that sad and shattering day ten years ago. I think about him using his teenage wife as a human shield when the Navy SEALs burst in, and I’m sure not sorry he’s dead but I’m far from ecstatic.  And I think about the millions of people all over the world who mourn his death as that of a martyr, and I don’t feel much like celebrating.