A moment almost 10 years in the making, Osama Bin Laden is dead.  He was killed by a group of navy seals and it was announced by the president last night about 10:30.  It’s been so long.  The crazy thing is that it was the most patriotic day I’ve had in a while and what a marvelous ending.

I woke up in the morning and went to see Water for Elephants with my lovely husband.  It was a wonderful movie.  It was really hard to watch some of the scenes with the animals, but the story was really good and I was very impressed by Robert Pattison’s ability to actually act when not in a teen movie.  After the movie, we came home and relaxed watching Parks & Rec, which I had never really given much of a chance… gotta love netflix streaming to my wii.

At around 4, Quincy and I walked over to my brother’s friends’ parent’s house… wow, that’s hard to follow.  My brother’s best friend growing up was Brian.  I spent a lot of time carting them around and got to know his whole family.  He is being deployed in a few weeks to Afghanistan.  His mom was putting stuff together for care packages to send to 3 other young men that are already in Afghanistan.  My niece even drew some pictures for them where she traced her hand.

Once I saw the email about these boys, I searched online for somethings that are good to send in these care packages.  I picked up some hardcore socks, easy mac, caffeinated gum (I know, right?), beef jerky, deodorant, hand sanitizer, wet ones, chapstick and the cheesiest cards I could find.  I think next month I’ll send them all a Maxim.  Anyways, I felt pretty good after leaving her house.  It feels good to give some energy and love and send it far away.  I came home, went to the gym, tanned (that’s a whole different blog entry) and then I put on my red, white & blue pajamas to watch Celebrity Apprentice.  Yes, I was watching the man who has been doubting our president is a citizen moments before the historic speech.
It was funny because I was laying on the couch and you can’t see the bottom of the tv, so when we were waiting for the president to come on, it said Osama bin Laden has been killed across the bottom of the screen and I had no idea.  Justin was laughing out loud that I was totally clueless.  Of course.  Anyways, I am glad I stayed up late.  It was very emotional.

It’s been a long 24 hours to think about it.  Many mixed emotions.  I mean, I was happy that someone had been killed.  There is a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that I really like.

‎”I will 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.”

I explained this to Justin today on our way home.  The issue I’m faced with is that I’m still so happy for this country that something that we’ve worked for for almost a decade was accomplished.  Is it going to stop the terrorism madness???  Probably not, but it’s a step in some direction.  The thing that made me sooo happy was the state of the citizens in this country last night.  Telebrating and coming together all night long.  Congrats to President Obama for making this happen.

Picture from Washington Post