1 Apr 2014 The Murrah Memorial, Oklahoma City, OK

 Ironically, on the same day that our daughter, Erin was visiting the World Trade Center in New York, we chose to go to the site, where on a horrible day 18 days shy of 19 years ago, some of our own citizens became our enemies.  This is the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum which commemorates the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

 On the plaza outside the building, children are invited to express their thoughts in words or pictures.  Note the yellow box containing chalk for the young artists/poets to write on the slate tiles in the patio.

These ceramic tiles art children's art illustrating their thoughts on this catastrophe.

For those who don't remember, at 9:02 am on April 19th, 1995, a band of misguided anti-government zealots, in revenge for the Waco massacre of two years previous, turned the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, shown above,

into this smoking ruin when a rental truck packed with 7,000 lbs. of diesel fuel saturated ammonium nitrate was detonated in front of it.  One of the conspirators, Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death and executed in 2001.  Another, Terry Nichols, is serving multiple consecutive life sentences.  Two more pled guilty and were granted reduced sentences in exchange for information leading to the conviction of McVeigh and Nichols.

These foundation walls are all that are now left of the building. 

 At each end of the memorial are the Gates of Time.  This one commemorates 9:01 A.M., one minute before the blast.  Note the reflection of the sun shining through the 9:03 gate as if to illustrate how our perceptions of that time are colored by the aftermath of what happened one minute before.





This is the 9:03 gate. It symbolizes the time one minute after the blast when this city, our country, and all of us who were alive at the time were changed forever. 

 Each of the people who died is commemorated by a chair with their name inscribed on it.  The smaller chairs represent the children who died in the day care center that was housed in the building. 

 These five chairs, slightly to the side of the rest represent the five who died outside the building. 
As sun sets, you can see the lights beneath each chair come on. 

These terraces leading into the memorial are exactly nine feet, two inches in width, representing the time of the explosion, 9:02. 

Across the street, facing away from the memorial is this statue.  At the foot of the statue are the words, "Jesus Wept". 

This American Elm, leaning away from the blast was charred, and mangled upon the blast..  Debris was heavily imbedded on one side.  It appeared to be destroyed.  Still, in defiance of the horror that had been wrought across the street from it, the tree began to regrow.  Today, it is known as the survivor tree.  It is a living symbol of the spirit that pushed the survivors and this city to move beyond the events of that tragic day and build a brighter future. The thought and sensitivity put into this memorial was moving.