It’s amazing that memories you have can still be so strong almost 10 years after they are made. After all, you don’t expect to remember a regular day in a fourth grade social studies room—yet, for all of us, that one day in September was far from ordinary.
Sept. 11 was indeed the day all of us had to grow up a little bit. Sure, we still didn’t quite grasp the gravity of the situation at the time, but we fundamentally understood that life as we knew it was over for the most part. Since that day we have grown up around buzzwords like Homeland Security, Al-Qaeda, Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden.
The last thing I expected Sunday night while I was sitting in Mac’s Place was to hear that the man I had grown up in absolute fear of had been killed. Naturally, when a friend got a CNN update from his phone, we were both in disbelief.
How could it be that easy? After all, this man had basically proven to be immortal since I was eight. And then it hit me; our childhood is actually over.
Yes, this comes as an odd thing to realize at 10:30 p.m. at Mac’s Place, but think about it. We have grown up with the likes of Harry Potter, Lizzie McGuire and the “Toy Story” trilogy. Sure, these are all fictional characters, but for all the good and happy stories our generation has seen, it has always been somewhat overshadowed by the fuzzy picture that embodied evil in our minds.
Bin Laden is someone who killed innocent people for his personal gain and didn’t show sorrow for what he had done or created. He is our generation’s Hitler of sorts, and now he too is gone.
The accounts on Facebook were overwhelmingly celebratory and bordering on actual hatred, naturally. After all, with bin Laden’s demise, that dark chapter in all of our lives can now end and more closure is finally allowed. The enormous loss we had that fateful September day can now have that formerly missing piece of closure, the belief that, “we got the guy,” has poured out over social media since the announcement was made. This does not mean that the War on Terror is over, anyone who has seen an episode of “Law and Order” or “Num3ers” can tell you that a terrorist organization is resilient, but the figurehead is gone. And we can collectively celebrate in that remarkable milestone.
This marks the passing of a historical figure, albeit a figure that was about as evil as you could get.
While the ramifications of these actions have yet to be seen, something all of us have grown up with can now be put to bed. Osama bin Laden can no longer hurt the innocent. This is something that is worth waiting for for over 10 years.
Savannah Stephens is a first year communications studies and history double major. She can be reached for comments or questions at [email protected].
