Remembering...

April 19, 1995

I was four years old. I'm not going to give a history lesson about what happened on this day, but I am going to tell you how it makes me feel.

When I was thirteen years old, my mom was living in Oklahoma. My siblings and I were with her for most of that summer. While we were there, we went and visited this "Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial," of which I had never heard of.

My first impression of the memorial was that it was absolutely beautiful...
I kept thinking that the shallow water was so clear, and the ducks that were floating in it were so cute! (I was thirteen and had no idea what I was witnessing.)

We kept walking through the memorial, and there were the two walls on each end of the pond. One says "9:01" and the other one says "9:03" -- The start and end of the tragedy.

I remember the chairs. One for each victim. 168 innocent people, not including the three fetuses of pregnant women. (I still think they should have had their own chairs. They're people too.) I remember the tree. The Survivor Tree.

The building across the street with this message painted on the side:

Team 5

 4-19-95
We search for the truth.
We seek justice.
The courts require it.
The victims cry for it.
And GOD demands it!






It's amazing how one thing can hit you so hard. Even when you had no idea.

The chairs, the walls, the pond..
And then the one that really hit me. I cried.

The fence.

There are so many memorial items on this fence. From birthday cards, to American flags, to teddy bears. That is the hardest part. You look at those teddy bears and you just know that they are for those children. Some of those children were just beginning life. Three months old in some cases. How can that NOT bother the person that did this? How is it that he was okay with himself?

This fence. It hits hard. 

I believe that the reason it bothers me so bad is because I now have a child of my own, and one on the way. And when I think about it, there were children that were her age when this happened that didn't make it. There were women in the building that were pregnant like I am, and didn't make it. I know there is nothing I can do now that it has already happened, but it really does just ...
There's a feeling that it brings forth from within me. I don't know what that feeling is. I don't know if I will ever be able to describe it, or explain it, or even understand it for myself.


There are a lot of things about this day that bothers me. There are a lot of things about other tragedies like this that bother me.
Forced Death. I hate it. Someone is forced to die (murdered, assassinated, killed by surrounding damage)...
Things like that.
I hate it.

September 11, 2001.
Charles Manson.
Timothy McVeigh.
Oklahoma City Bombing.
Waco Siege.

I could go on and on. Seriously.

I hate it.

And now that I have thrown my feelings into a webpage that very few people will even look at, I am going to try to distract myself with happy things.
I'm going to sit in my bed tonight and think about everyone who has been victimized by these cruel hateful events...

FIN.