Oklahoma City Memorial

Tuesday, March 24th, was going to be the nicest day of the week. So it was going to be, "see some sites" day. Of course some of the best "sites" for me are Mardel stores. We hit two that day! I got me some great deals on some books, but I don't want to bore you all on my book shopping.

One of the places that I've never really visited was the Oklahoma City Memorial for the bombing that happened on April 19, 1995. The only one of the kids that was even born at the time was Brooke and she would have just been a baby. We really didn't think that the kids would be that interested in it, so much so, that Theresa thought 30 minutes would be enough time on the parking meter. I put .50 cents in and that gave us an hour.

My kids were enthralled with it! I once heard someone talking about boys and he said find the most disgusting thing and they'll write about it. Now that man was talking about trying to get boys to write, but I thought that must be part of why they were so interested in this Memorial. It had to do with bombs!

I truly was amazed at it myself. If the museum wouldn't have been so expensive I think we all would have enjoyed it, but we just gave ourselves a tour on the grounds. Everything about this Memorial has a meaning to it. I'll try to share with the pictures, but I know that pictures can never do things justice.

At the time this bombing happened, it was the worst "terrorist" attack on American soil.

This was one of the original signs for the building. It is on the south side of the property and the part of the parking garage is right behind it.

The "wall" where people still leave things in memory of those who were lost.

The view from the north.
Those are our kids. This is the east wall, and above the "doorway" it says 9:01.

On the west wall over the "doorway" it says 9:03. The bomb went off at 9:02, and between those two walls represents what happened and how things changed.
This is part of the original, exterior portion of the wall on the east side.The granite, that Preston is walking on, was salvaged out of the building.
In this picture there is a lot of symbolism. 1) The water, which you can see in other pictures, is where the street ran in front of the building, and it was where Timothy McVeigh parked the Ryder truck. The water is around an inch deep and it is continually flowing. The purpose is to create a soothing sound for people to come and reflect and remember. 2) The trees. The tree that the kids are standing under and the whole row like them, when they get to full height, are suppose to be the height of what the building was. 3) The Field of Empty Chairs. Each chair represents a life lost, there are 168. They are placed where the building once stood, and the shape of the chairs are suppose to "fill in" the gap that the bomb blew up. (More on the chairs later.)

I'm not sure if this lady is a Park Ranger or a guide or what, but she was able to explain some of the symbolism to us.
As I said before, each chair represents a life lost. The bigger chairs represent the adults who lost their lives and the littler chairs represent the children who died. At night the base of the chairs light up. There are nine rows of chairs, and the placement of the chair represents what floor they worked on or were visiting when they lost their lives. There are five on the far west side that represent those who lost their lives out side of the building.
The tree in the back ground is named "The Survivor Tree". The bark on the trunk is still black from the bomb. The building in the background was an office building. Ceilings collapsed, walls fell and glass shards flew. All the windows were lost. They tried to keep the building looking like it did the day of the bomb. The black windows and black brick try to show the void that was there that day. Many were injured in this building and some critically but none died. This is the building that the museum is located in now, and part of the building is where rooms are left exactly as they were on that day.
A Rescue Worker originally painted this message on this wall during search and recovery efforts in April 1995.

The Catholic church that was across the street on the west side put up this monument. Jesus has his back to the destruction and he is facing the granite wall with niches that represent the 168 lives lost. At His feet, it simply says, "Jesus Wept".

When we got back to the vehicle we had one minute left on the parking meter. We told the kids to hurry up and get in so we don't get a ticket. (All in a joking manner.) That lead to a huge question and answer time with my kids. Why would the police give us a ticket? How would they know the time was up? etc. etc. Later that night, Kaylie's prayer was totally about thanking God that the police didn't give us a ticket and he didn't chase us to the zoo, and on and on.