“I’m in tears. It’s not natural to celebrate the death of someone. But somehow, it feels natural tonight”
The above was read by Andrea Mitchell on NBC News; it was part of an email sent to a Nightly News producer, from a woman who had lost her father on September 11th, 2001.
I heard the quote almost immediately after turning on my television originally
woken up by my cell phone. The historic event—a phrase that feels common now amongst earthquakes and uprisings and royal snoggings—was first broken to me via text message. My friend Jon relayed it with an eloquent simplicity:
May 1, 2011 7:45:33PM
So Bin Laden…dead. disproportionately enormous
My initial thought was that I was missing some pop-culture reference; some joke on Tosh.0 that I wasn’t getting because I instinctually don’t like Daniel Tosh for some reason I can’t explain. There’s was no way, I thought, that Osama Bin Laden could be dead. It’s been almost a decade since we started that rabbit hunt. We’re onto new things now: oil spills, a new war, a different country to blame for gas prices, Japanese radiation, a new new war, the possibility that the planet is trying to kill us. Osama Bin Laden wouldn’t even be on the outerskirts of Entertainment Weekly’s back page bullseye. Finding him had gone from the American Government’s number one priority to a lazy stand-up comedian’s punchline. I figured, as I assume most had, that the case had gone cold. But I see now why it’s said that revenge should be served at the same temperature.
We’re constantly taught in life that revenge doesn’t solve anything. Our parents, religious leaders, Oprah; every major source of morality that we have in our developmental years point towards the same ideal of forgiveness. ‘Forgive those who hurt you, for yourself if not for them’. ‘Resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die’. ‘He who digs a grave for vengeance must also dig blabla—’ you get the the point. Forgiveness, in this country, is preached as a Christian, and therefore—let’s be honest—American value. And yet America, as a country, could not be more celebratory over the violent death of Osama Bin Laden. Not in the quiet, reflective sense; there is no moment of silence across the nation with a gentle smirk. There’s studio applause and standing ovations and congratulatory mentions on everything from Good Morning America to The Tonight Show. All ages, ethnicities, and creeds joined together in pure unadulterated joy over a man being shot in the face and his dead body being brought back to U.S soil to then thrown into the ocean. All because ten years ago, he hurt us and he hurt us bad.
I went through several transitions in relation to how I dealt with hurt as I entered my twenties. Let me preface this by saying that everyone has their story, and I don’t find my own to be anything special, although I do believe that somewhere out there is a country club exclusively for people who have enjoyed hurting me for sport. And when enough people describe you with such adjectives as “fighter”, and “survivor”, and “I can’t believe you didn’t turn out to be a serial killer given your circumstances”, you get the gist that perhaps you could be an authority on the subject of emotional wounds. They’re there, and then they heal, and maybe the resulting scars fade over time, but they’re always present; and a full day rarely goes by when you don’t remember where and who you got them from. And it’s from those daily reminders that my transitions came about during and after my college years. I was finding myself with enough independence to stay away from, and learn to stop attracting, damaging situations; but I still felt myself weighed down from day to day with the ever-present emotional weight of the past. Initially, when I first started consciously working towards easing that weight, ‘forgiveness’ was the most obvious route to go down. It’s what Oprah would want.
For example, I used to say, “Part of growing up is forgiving your parents for things they will never apologize for.” It was a motto of mine, and I was proud of it. Look how mature I am, so forgiving and adapting to what clearly must just be my intended situation in life. And it was that line of thinking that landed me a whole slew of abusive relationships. Because what says forgiveness more than “If I’m kind and understanding, eventually he’ll change.”. Of course I am aware that that is not the intended purpose of forgiveness. And in my present state, I do have an understanding of how important it is to let go of hate, anger, and resentment towards those who hurt you. But I also know that, under the right context, vengeance makes for really great icing on some forgiveness cake.
I’ve shifted my prior motif from back-breaking forgiveness to believing wholeheartedly that if you are part of a family, or relationship, or friendship, where it is painfully clear you will never be happy, and treated with the love and respect needed to be happy, you need to go find a new one. I want this factoid sown onto pillows to decorate my living room with, I believe in it so strongly. In a way, it creates its own vengeance, the kind that involves living well, and knowing that they will regret missing out on the greatness of you. And I’ll admit that I can take that to extremes. When things feel difficult, hurdles seem too high to overcome, I think of just how much crow my brother will eat if I achieve everything I ever wanted; and that holds me through the storm. And then I imagine him actually eating a crow, and that makes me smile.
Vengeance, dear Christian nation, can be one hell of a motivator.
What does that say about forgiveness, one asks? About the power of it, the healing capabilities, the place it holds in helping us move on with out lives after a trauma? It tells me that it’s still very important, but so is knowing that the ones who hurt you will wish he or she hadn’t. It is a very shiny silver-place medal. An achievement that sure does look good on you, but not as good as gold. Which is which, between forgiveness and vengeance, I’m not too sure I know depending on the day. But I do know that millions of shattered lives, broken homes, support groups and charity dollars later, almost nothing feels as good as the moment you heard that Osama Bin Laden’s remains were dumped into the ocean, as if so that not even earthworms could touch him, lest they taste what he had done.
Away from flowery prose and back to Oprah for a moment. Two months ago she had two sisters on who had been raped by their two brothers in their own homes for several years. Miss O asked them if they could forgive their brothers. She asked them if they could forgive their own brothers for raping them hundreds of times, and then she played for them a pre-recorded interview where the two brothers, in jail now, talked about wanting forgiveness. And their response was “no.” No, they were not in the mood to forgive being raped by their family for years, Oprah. And what they didn’t say, but I’m pretty sure I heard, was that they would much rather find out their brothers were shot in the face by Navy Seals. As I’m pretty sure Dr. William Petit also felt similarily when you asked if he could forgive the men who raped and murdered his wife and children when you interviewed him. Forgiveness is a wonderful thing, but in our modernly sensitive times, vengeance has become vastly underrated. Were I to ever find out that one Paul Guarino was trampled to death by wild horses, I would most likely go out the very next day and put a down payment on a horse; just to make a statement.
And oh how I would gallop around.
As a country, we had to find a way to move on with our lives after September 11th. Not with revenge, but with strength, and compassion, and love for one another. But we also did go to war, and usher in a whole new era of racism, and obliterated our country’s international image all for the sake of hunting down one man for some Kill Bill style revenge. Also to score some oil, more than likely; but still to have some Kill Bill style revenge. And at the end of the day, Disney lessons aside, who’s to say that revenge of some form isn’t in its own way also part of the healing process?
I’m looking at you, Oprah.
Antisocially yours,
Misha D.
