the thought of 9/11 not a bitter-sweet one....

when i think about bitter-sweet moments in my life it's usually when i'm reflecting on a photo-album moment like the birth and childhood of my children and how i miss those days.  i miss not being able to pick them up and hold them, i miss the moments when they made me so proud that i could cry.  those are the sweet moments that are mixed in with the bitter ones that i experienced during and after my divorce with their mother...how i missed them so much and how i wished that i had made better decisions that could have kept me in their lives more than i was during the time that they were growing up.

those were the bitter moments that i experienced in the memories of my kids growing up and turning into fine college educated, responsible young adults.  then, combine that with knowing that these experiences have led me down the path to who and where i am now.  a path that has taken me where i would not have gone otherwise...meeting people i would otherwise not have met.  bitter-sweet moments.  life is full of them.  september 11, 2001 was not one of them.  there was nothing "bitter-sweet" about 9/11.  i can think of a thousand adjectives but none of them would come close to being bitter-sweet.

tragic, horrible, un-explainable and evil would first come to mind, not what vice president joe biden called it today.  he called 9/11 a "bitter-sweet"  moment.  when i heard that it left a knot in my stomach.  it took me back to that day when the people trapped in the towers, ultimately had to make a decision of whether to be burned alive or jump, knowing that they would be killed.  it took me back to the horrors of imagining that it is was me on flight 93 knowing that something had to be done to stop the people that had hijacked the plane and that something would probably result in my death as the plane violently raced towards the ground at 500 mph.

that thought is not a bitter-sweet one...it both frightens and saddens me because i know that "there go i but for the grace and mercy of god."  in the past, i've made jokes about some of the gaffe's that biden has made...but today, what he said was no laughing matter.  such a serious and somber occasion as 9/11 deserves to be honored and revered only by serious and somber leaders...of which we have neither.  with president obama, we have a leader who i learned today has once again slighted our friends and allies in israel, turning down a request for a meeting with israel's prime minister, benjamin netanyahu as well as arrogantly ignoring the speed with which he is driving our country into a point of no return with our economy, national security and standing in the world.

now, this.  the comment by a vice-president that is no laughing matter but a tragedy because as vice-president this man is only a heartbeat away from being a world leader.  another bitter-sweet thought for me is having a real president and vice-president...people who take their roles as world leaders with the seriousness, sobriety and concern for it's citizens that such a role requires and deserves.