Growing Up Bin Laden - Jean P. Sasson [172]
For that entire journey across the rough terrain of Afghanistan, I never stopped praying that everything of the world could be peaceful, that all lives might return to normal. I believe that wish is universal for every woman who is a mother.
For all the horrible events that have occurred since I left Afghanistan, I can only think and feel with my mother’s heart. For every child lost, a mother’s heart harbors the deepest pain. None can see our sons grow to men. None can see our daughters become mothers. No longer can we see the smiles on their faces, or wipe away their tears. A mother’s heart like mine feels the pain of every loss, weeping not only for my children, but for the lost children of every mother.
Chapter 30
September 11, 2001
OMAR BIN LADEN
A weird wail, followed by an excited voice, woke me from a deep sleep. I was at my grandmother’s home in Jeddah when my uncle came crashing into my room, his voice high-pitched and loud, his words confusing. “Look what my brother has done! Look what my brother has done! He has ruined all our lives! He has destroyed us!”
He continued to shout, “Come quickly! Come and see what my brother has done! See what your father has done!”
I dressed hurriedly and followed him into a room with a television screen. I saw flames belching from tall buildings. I had no idea what I was looking at.
I knew soon enough, however: America was under serious attack.
The words and the images were too horrific to comprehend. Although my uncle had expressed his worst fears, none of us could truly believe that someone we knew, someone we had loved, had anything to do with the catastrophic events we were watching.
Despite Abu Haadi’s warnings, it seemed impossible for my father to be the one responsible for the chaos and death going on in America. The attack I was seeing was far too vast, something that only another superpower could organize. This was far bigger than my memory of Abu Haadi’s words and gestures, first holding his hand only a few inches from the ground, telling me, “Omar, this is how big the Embassy bombings were”, then raising his hand as high as he could reach, “This is how big the next mission will be.”
Was this the mission? Surely not!
Then I remembered a surreal moment. The night before, I had received a surprise telephone call from my mother, saying that she had taken my advice and had built up the courage to ask my father for permission to leave. She had left Afghanistan and was now in Syria. She had her two babies with her, along with Abdul Rahman. Her other children had been left behind in Afghanistan.
“Ladin?” I asked.
My mother paused, then said, “He is with his father.”
That little boy’s plight tugged at my heart.
In light of the current calamity, the implications of my father allowing her to leave struck me with great force. Had he let her go only because he knew what was coming?
After seeing the New York towers, I called my mother, to learn that she was watching the television in Syria, but she was too distraught to have a normal conversation. The phone call was brief.
The members of the huge bin Laden family reacted in the same way as my mother. Everyone shut down. No one spoke of the incident. My uncle never again addressed the possibility that my father was behind the attacks. My grandmother refused to consider the idea that her son had anything to do with the burning buildings.
I, too, fed my own uncertainties with a million reasons why he could not have done this terrible deed. I did not want my father to be the one responsible.
Only much later, when he took personal credit for the attacks, did I know I must give up the luxury of doubt. That was the moment to set aside the dream that I had indulged, feverishly hoping that the world was wrong and it was not my father who brought about that horrible event. After hearing an audiotape of my father’s own words taking credit for the attacks, I faced the reality that he was the perpetrator behind the events of September 11, 2001.
This knowledge drives me into the blackest hole.
Everyone knew that