Emotional Rollercoaster

This has indeed been a very emotional week-end for a myriad of reasons.

On Friday was the beautiful and inspiring Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. This was a wonderful event watched around the world which brought hope to many for a better tomorrow.

Saturday a dear and treasured friend left to return to Canada after a splendid and eventful 5 month visit and she will be sorely missed.

Sunday there was an unheard of and rare occurrence when at 9:00 pm in the evening President Barack Obama called a news conference in the East Wing of the White House and the speculation ran rampant as the announcement was delayed over an hour.

When he finally did enter the briefing room it was to announce to the world that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in a covert Navy Seal operation in Abbottabad 80 miles north of the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad. No US troops were harmed and care was taken to protect civilians. The entire operation took about 40 minutes. President Obama also credited the Pakistani President, Asif Ali Zardari, with assisting the US in locating Osama Bin Laden and, indeed, carrying out the mission which took Bin Laden out of a mansion and not in the tribal mountainous areas as previously suspected.

We now have DNA proof that it was Osama Bin Laden that had been killed and President Obama said that “Justice has been done”. CNN’s National Security Analyst, Peter Bergen, who interviewed Bin Laden in 1997 went as far as to say that the war on terrorism was over as no one could ever match the stature and charisma of Osama Bin Laden. When recruits are sworn in they swear their allegiance to Osama Bin Laden personally and now the biggest symbol of terrorism is dead.

Naturally, there is speculation that there will be backlashes by Bin Laden loyalists and the entire intelligence community is on high alert. We will see what transpires in the weeks and months ahead.

There is, however, a sense that the world is a better place without this man in it and hope and optimism abound around the world in every race.

It is into this purer and brighter world full of hope that this morning at 1:03 am our grandson, Ethan Alexander Valencia Buhrman, was born to our daughter, Tiffany. We wish Tiffany and her husband, Oscar Valencia, and their new son, Ethan, all the happiness in the world.

Hopefully, Bin Laden will not become a martyr as it has been almost ten years since 9/11 and he was virtually living in luxury and I think every thinking person welcomes the prospect of peace at last.