A Non-Baseball Note.

I was watching the Mets/Phillies game on Sunday night when I heard the news.  My wife was sitting on the couch and I told her to hush because I wasn't sure if I misheard what I thought I just heard.  We got bin Laden.  The crowd started to chant USA!  USA!

Sorry, Mets.  I grabbed the remote and turned on CNN.

I don't think anyone will forget where they were on September 11th, 2001.  I remember the look on my colleague's face when the first tower fell.   Minutes earlier, she was speaking to one of her relatives that was still in the building and she didn't know if he had gotten out in time.  I was living in Jersey at the time, right across the river and all night I heard the military helicopters in the air and the air smelled different.  My wife was in the city.  She heard the second plane scream overhead and fly into the tower.  She watched the towers fall.  We are the lucky ones.  No one we knew was lost.  But both of us know many who did.

Hearing the news that an evil man had been killed brought no joy.  I am glad he's gone.  Bin Laden did not deserve to be breathing any longer.  I am glad he was killed and shown swift and immediate justice as he was awakened in the middle of the night and taken out with the same lack of mercy, for those who show no mercy deserve none.  But as I said to my wife as we were trying to describe what we were feeling, there is that innate knowing that is within all of us that have a conscience, that have a soul, that are not sociopaths that taking the life of someone and that killing is wrong.  Obama did what had to be done.  He made an incredibly tough decision.  I applaud him for it.  I'm proud that the man is our President.  But there is still that inner gnawing that is within all of us, that feeling that we can't quite put our finger on, that is happy this bastard is dead and that he got what he deserved - but we know that it still feels wrong to celebrate a calculated killing.

The bastard is gone.  If there is a hell, I hope he's burning in it.  It won't bring back those we lost.  It won't fill the void in the hearts of those who lost their loved ones.