As he sat in the darkened bedroom once belonging to his daughter, Mike Low told Sara of the news Sunday night that the man behind the largest terror attacks on U.S. soil was dead.
The room has sat untouched since Sara's death nearly 10 years ago, save for the addition of private memorial of her remains in a glass case. The flight attendant was 28 when her hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center. She was one of hundreds killed in the attacks. Two other Arkansans — Nehamon Lyons IV of Pine Bluff and Malissa White of Bald Knob — were also among the victims.
That Osama bin Laden was dead, killed by Navy Seals during a raid on compound in Pakistan, wasn't something "joyful or happy," Mike Low said Monday.
"But it was certainly good and right and something highly desirable," he related. "This is the first really big serving of justice with bin Laden."
Sara's older sister, Alyson, expressed a similar sentiment from her home in Fayetteville.
"I resigned myself to the fact that he was going to die of old age and we would never know, that he would get to live out a long life," she said Monday. "So it was very satisfying that he was dispatched in this manner."
"It's good for my family and for all 9/11 families," Mike Low said of bin Laden's death. "And it's a good thing for military families and a validation of all the wonderful military people"
Low said it was no surprise that bin Laden was still alive and well.
"I had the feeling that he was alive and well taken care of by Pakistanis," Low said.
Others, such as Zacarias Moussaoui and Mounir el Motassadeq were important, but bin Laden was "so important for our country" to finally get what he called the "big evil perpetrator."
With the 10-year anniversary of the attacks approaching, Low said bin Laden's death was the exclamation point to years of activism and the intense process that followed the 9/11 attacks.
His family, he said, deals with the loss of Sara every day. There is no true closure, both Lows said. But there is the quiet pride in knowing that in her final moments, Sara displayed bravery and quick thinking that helped put authorities on the trail of the hijackers.
FBI documents not yet released showed that Sara used her calling card, with her family's Batesville home number, to share information as the pilots were killed and the hijackers took over. Alyson Low said her sister was doing what she always did, thinking of others. She said Sara must have been frightened but not paralyzed in those last minutes.
"Sara had the courage to do this amidst horrible circumstances," her father echoed.
As the news sinks in that bin Laden has been killed, other family members of those who died in in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have reacted with shock and relief.
A relative of a Navy sailor who died at the Pentagon said she hopes helps to bring some closure to her family.
Debra Lyons Johnson said Monday she thinks about her cousin, Nehamon Lyons, every day.
Lyons was an operations specialist from Pine Bluff who graduated from Dollarway High School in 1989.
Johnson says that at first she didn’t believe the news that Bin Laden was dead. She says she still has trouble understanding Lyons’ death, calling it “senseless.”
She says her family still celebrates Lyons’ birthday and adds that “the hurt will always be there.”
Information for this article was contributed by The Associated Press.