For Lower Makefield families, emotions surge

Jordan Reiss got a text message from a friend some time during the bottom of the seventh at Citizens Bank Park Sunday night.

With the Phillies trailing the Mets by one, Reiss took his eyes off the game for a split second to read the note:

Osama bin Laden is dead.

 Confused, Reiss, 30, turned to his buddy next to him, "Osama bin Laden is dead?"

The friend shrugged.

Reiss checked Facebook and Twitter. Nothing.

He stepped away from the stands to call his parents, Judi and Gary Reiss of Lower Makefield, Bucks County.

"Dad, turn on the news," Jordan told him.

"Why? What's wrong?" his father asked, immediately worried.

"Just turn it on. I think Osama bin Laden is dead."

Reiss heard his mother scream in the background. "I gotta go," his father said hanging up.

Heading back to his seat, Reiss gave one of the security guards a high-five. The crowd began to buzz as fans broke out in spontaneous cheers and chanted, U-S-A!

Reiss posted on Facebook: All right!!!!

 The scars of 9/11 run deep in Lower Makefield, a wealthy bedroom community in Lower Bucks County that's home to many rail commuters to both Center City and Manhattan.

Eight families from the township lost relatives - more than any other community in Pennsylvania. Reiss' older brother, 23-year-old Joshua, was the second of five siblings, a bond trader who died in the collapse of the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

Around Lower Makefield, the news of bin Laden's death bounced from one home to another, with reactions ranging from vindication to shock and sadness.

"I'm glad it's over, but it's a little too late," said Grace Godshalk, a former township supervisor whose son, William, would have turned 45 this week."It's been almost 10 years. Why couldn't this have been done sooner?"

Tara Bane, whose husband, Michael, was killed on 9/11, watched the television images of cheering, boisterous crowds in New York and Washington. "I'm not cheering," Bane said. "There's a sense of relief but there's also a lot of sadness and anger. Bin Laden had nine-and-a-half more years to live than Michael and that makes me angry."

In Boulder, Col., Fiona Havlish got a text from Bane Sunday night, asking, Are you watching the news?

She wasn't and flicked on her TV. Like Bane, Havlish lost her husband, Donald, on 9/11. Bonded by a shared experience, they have remained friends.

Hours later, Havlish posted this message to her fellow 9/11 families:

I find it interesting how the death of one person can bring closure and calm to some and reopen deep, painful wounds for others.

The memory of 9/11, she said later, "is a vortex that never lets us go."

Havlish said she would have preferred seeing bin Laden taken alive. She and several of the Lower Makefield families are plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit that takes aim at Iran for its role in supporting terrorism. The case, handled by Doylestown attorney Thomas E. Mellon Jr., is one of several to be filed against other nations and foreign groups in the wake of 9/11.

"For me, it's about holding those who killed all of our loved ones accountable," Havlish said.

For Jordan Reiss, hearing about the death of bin Laden was unequivocally good news.

"It was jubiliation," said Reiss, who runs two online clothing businesses. "The stadium became a mad house. It was unbelievable to see that sort of national unity."

"I don't remember a bigger moment in my life in a good way," he added.

Two years younger than Joshua, Jordan was hit hard by killing of his older brother. "I live within the confines of that moment," he said. "It's always with me."

At first, he took to wearing an old pair of his brother's shoes as a way of holding on to his memory. Today, the shoes are in the closet at his family's home in Lower Makefield.

Now with the death of bin Laden, Reiss said it has given him "a little bit of closure."

After the marathon 14-inning Phillies game, Reiss drove to his home in Yardley around 1 a.m. He slept soundly and peacefully into the morning. "This was the first good night's sleep I have had in 10 years," he said.