Oklahoma City Bombing

At a little after 9am on April 19th a truck exploded outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. When the dust settled, and the rescue efforts were finally stopped 168 people were dead including 19 children in the day-care center located in the building.

It was a normal April day for us. Katie was in first grade and left for school a little after 8am. Sarah was in afternoon kindergarten and wouldn't catch the bus until 12:30. Seth was only 3 at the time and was seeing a speech pathologist at U-M and that's where we were when the devestation began.

We had no idea what had happened halfway across the country that morning until, we were on our way home. For us, it was a nice spring day - perfect for an hour drive. We had the radio on and were singing along to silly songs.

By the time the 11am news rolled around - the media had grabbed the story and was speculating, we hadn't the whole story - just mentions of a breaking news story in Oklahoma between songs. Oklahoma was so far away, we didn't listen too closely, we heard there was an explosion in front of a building. Now, I wish I had listened closer.

When we got home, we turned on the TV to catch the latest news, never expecting to see the chaos, the destruction, the wounded so close-up. For the first time, the news media decided that we as a nation needed to see the gore, the blood, the anguish on the faces of all of those involved.

The first images that came into focus were of blood and injuries. My 5-year-old daughter stood transfixed in front of the TV. Then they started showing pictures of the dead babies. I shoo'd her away from the TV, but I couldn't stop watching. What kind of a monster blows up a day-care? What evilness kills babies while they lay sleeping in their cribs or playing with trucks? It was too late to save their lives and too late to save the innocence of my daughter.

I had hoped that sending her to school, she would be so occupied with her friends that she would forget what she had seen in those few moments. It took our nation weeks to begin to recover, but how does a young child recover from the horror that is beyond adult understanding?

It wasn't until months later that I realized that Sarah still thought about the images none of us seemed to be able to escape. Everything had become some sort of terror, something to be feared. We were traveling in Florida when we drove by a construction site in Daytona Beach. Sarah stared at the steel girders, the open spaces and she said "How many people died there mommy?" Even the new became a symbol of the evilness that invaded our country that April day in Oklahoma.

May we never forget those who lost their lives in Oklahoma.