PLYMOUTH, Minn. -- For some Americans the death of Osama Bin Laden is a time to celebrate.
You should not count Eric Aamoth among them.
"For me it's not a jubilant time, it's just a relief that it's over," said Aamoth, whose 32-year-old brother Gordy -- an investment banker who worked on the 104th floor of World Trade Center -- was among those who died under orders given by Bin Laden.
Eric was watching a ball game Sunday night when he heard the announcers say that Bin Laden had been killed.
He woke his wife, and then emotions caught up with him. "I just kind of collapsed and just was sobbing. I'm more emotional than I thought I was going to be."
Aamoth was surprised by his own reaction.
But University of Minnesota Professor Emeritus Pauline Boss says it's not unexpected. "Closure is essentially a myth. We live with loss, we don't get over it."
Boss has written several books about loss. For her most recent, "Loss, Trauma, and Resilience: Therapeutic Work with Ambiguous Loss," she spoke with families who lost loved ones on 9/11.
"Their emotions understandably will be mixed -- happy that justice is done, in most cases, but they know it doesn't fix their loss. They have to live with that for a lifetime," she said.
Minnesotan Scott Wallace was on a business trip and on the 63rd floor of the first tower hit on 9/11. His family wasn't sure for a time if he was dead or alive. It all came back Sunday night, as he, his wife and all three of his now adult children shed tears.
"The president got done last night and I went 'Thank You." He stayed there and he got it done and we have that terror leader out of the world picture, and I think I was thankful for that, but again the raw emotion was there, and it was like we're reliving this all over again."
Aamoth said he'd given up hope that Bin Laden would ever by found, but he "did want to see him caught and brought to justice and that was important to me."
On Monday he hung a flag on the front of his home. Mixed emotions. All American.
"It closed the chapter, but certainly it continues on," he said.
(Copyright 2011 by KARE. All Rights Reserved.)