Monday was Terrease Aiken's 18th birthday, marking another family occasion without her father, who died in the 9/11 terrorist attack. But knowing that the man behind that plot had been killed made the day special.
"As wonderful as it is, it still doesn't change that my father isn't here," she texted her mother earlier Monday.
Terrease was only 8 when her father was killed. Terrance Aiken had been working in the World Trade Centers for only a few days when terrorist planes took down the skyscrapers. Kimberly Trimingham-Aiken moved her kids to metro Atlanta five years ago.
Since her husband's death, she said, she's spent so much time being the strong mother that she's had little time to grieve. Seems the older the kids get, the more they need their father, she said. She said she almost broke down teaching her 15-year-old, Kanan, to tie a necktie.
"This is the start of closure for me," she said. "I'm able to start healing."
For the families who lost relatives in the national tragedy of Sept. 11, bin Laden's death is something very personal. The attack that tore at the heart of the nation stole away their loved ones. On Monday, many cheered bin Laden's demise and felt a deep sense of satisfaction and, after all these years, justice. But others had mixed emotions -- from relief that the man responsible for so many deaths no longer had the power to wreck havoc, to discomfort over the way he met his end.
"I'm glad that he can't do any further harm to anyone," said Carolyn LaFrance, a McDonough woman whose brother, audiovisual technician Alan LaFrance, died that day. "I would have preferred he was captured alive and brought over here."
She held on to her anger for years, till it began to hurt her. "I went on spending sprees to get rid of the pain and loneliness," she said. In recent months, she has tried to set a new course for herself, guided by the example of her deceased brother. She remembered how he kept his calm in the worst situations. That's helped her through two years of unemployment.
Recently she wrote him a "grief letter," filled with memories such as when he convinced her to sneak into the movies with him. She told him she wished he could be there at the birth of her grandchildren and the death of their grandparents.
Ten years after their son died, Shelby and Georgia White have gone through grief, a divorce borne of mutual despair -- and now the mutual joy of seeing bin Laden laid low.
Their son, Adam, was a 26-year-old worker in the financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald when the plane sliced into the north tower of the World Trade Centers. It was the first building hit and the last to go down. So many local news reports have been written about the White family that they have become metro Atlanta's face of 9/11 despair. They have appeared on TV and in numerous stories in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, talking about their bright and adventurous son, his love of mountain climbing and his ambitious career in the Big Apple.
Shelby and Georgia, now close friends, make sure to take a bicycle ride together every Sept. 11, recalling the memories of Adam.
Shelby White said he's glad the terrorist leader is gone, though he never had any special death wish for him. He always saw bin Laden as part of a larger danger to the U.S.
As for emotional closure, he said, "I don't know what closure is. If it means I'm not going to think about my son, well that's never going to happen. I think about him every day, and I will until I'm off the planet."
He added, though, "Things are better today than they were yesterday."
For some, bin Laden's death provided little solace.
Sara Guest, who's sister was killed on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, had trouble believing bin Laden was truly gone.
"I hope it's true," Guest, of Watkinsville, told the AJC. "I'm not sure I believe it yet."
Cindy Taylor, 53, an Atlanta school teacher, lost her brother, Vernon Cherry, who was a firefighter who died in the terror attacks.
"I do not celebrate murder in any form," Taylor said. Bin Laden's death "does not relieve my loss."
She was disturbed by all the celebrating. In general, she still has trouble thinking about that day 10 years ago. Most people, when they suffer the death of someone close, don't have to see it again and again in the news and headlines, she said.
"It's always still difficult," she said.
But, despite that difficulty, the 9/11 families keep moving forward.
Terrease Aiken, the birthday girl, graduates from Woodstock High School this May. She plans to study musical theater at Rutgers University. Kanan, her brother, wants to become a New York City police officer, hoping to make sure another 9/11 never occurs. The youngest, Andre, 13, loves computers, just like his father. The siblings are leading a normal life, which was hard for Trimingham-Aiken to imagine a decade ago.
That day in 2001, she heard the news, rushed to the roof to see the burning buildings for herself, all the while desperately hoping her husband would be alright, that he had somehow made it out alive.
"I'm just so happy today. I'm so happy," she said, as her voice trailed off into sobs.
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