May 11
Images on the television news shock me: someone bombed Los Angeles International Airport. On a Sunday, no less! No one yet knows who; the commentators speculate Islamist extremists might have done the job. Perhaps so, they’ve certainly threatened to often enough.
Details remain sketchy: apparently a suicide bomber detonated a truck loaded with explosives outside the Bradley International Terminal. Someone caught the explosion on tape, and now they play it over and over: the frenzied movements of travelers, interrupted grotesquely by a sudden shock wave. The image has no sound, yet I cower each time they show it as if I can hear the blast. The news will spend days on the events of 5-11, as they’ve already named it.
I cried much of the morning. More than a hundred people died. I didn’t know any of them, as far as I know. But I lived not two miles from the airport for several years. I traveled through that airport, and even twice through the international terminal.
For now, the airport has been shut down, and the city shaken. Curfews have been declared, and Bill tells me that silence hangs over the streets like a veil of mourning.
I feel saddened by the loss of life and by the assault on my familiar world. Yet I expect in a day or two, life will return to normal. No doubt the politicians will make speeches, and probably pass a few more laws making it easier to spy on their enemies. And the news reporters will milk the event for all it’s worth. But life will return to normal, at least for those of us not directly affected. But I imagine that in Los Angeles people will feel the world has changed.
It being Mother's Day, I called my mom, but we didn't have much cheer to wish each other.
It being Mother's Day, I called my mom, but we didn't have much cheer to wish each other.
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