Life Shines On

When someone dies we tend to try make meaning out of the loss; give it some type of purpose.  This is especially true when the death is traumatic.  It is also true that when another traumatic event occurs, those who are grieving experience a re-traumatization.  Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/ll attacks was found and killed by American soldiers this week.  America has been grieving for ten years.  Has the death of Bin Laden re-traumatized America

At the first announcement of Bin Laden's death, young people gathered in the streets, in front of the White House and on college campuses to come together to celebrate as Americans.   The media has been covering every detail of the killing and will probably begin showing us the graphic photos of Bin Laden's dead body.  This morning I watched Robin Roberts on Good Morning America remark that even the crew in the studio was intensely watching the coverage of Bin Laden's death, which I guess is unusual.  President Obama  plans to visit Ground Zero.

In 2001, our nation had intense feelings of grief:  anger, depression, guilt.  Now I am watching us have intense feelings of victory and justice served.  Is this because we have been re-traumatized?  Re-traumatization is when we have similar intense feelings of a traumatic event we experienced in the past.  The intensity of the feelings is the re-living of the trauma.  It would only be normal that we would have these feelings. 

I also wonder how the children of those who died on 9/11 feel today?   Do they think justice has been served? Dr. Robert Klitzman, whose sister died in the World Trade Center, shared his feelings of Bin Laden's death in the New York Times.  While he is glad that the man who murdered his sister is "at the bottom of the sea", he and his family "do not want to be simply emblems of grieving family members." 

September 11, 2001, was a horrific day for America.  While I don't know that Bin Laden's death will give us closure, it would be wonderful if his death gave us peace.