OKC Memorial

On Oct. 1, on my way home from my girls' weekend in rocking Enid, Okla., my friend and I stopped in Oklahoma City because she had never been to the Oklahoma City National Memorial. We didn't have time to visit the musuem, but the outdoor symbolic memorial is a site to see, in itself.

Titled simply "Jesus Wept", this is the memorial at the Catholic church across the street from the Murrah building. That is part of the memorial behind the statue.

This is my gorgeous friend who went with me to Oklahoma.

Once you're inside the memorial, this is on the wall as you enter. We ventured in to see the gift shop before we left.

This is a memorial left for a mom who died in the bombing. They still have a section of fencing outside for the makeshift memorials.

Designed by Butzer Design Partnership, this Memorial honors the victims, survivors, rescuers, and all who were changed forever on April 19. It encompasses the now-sacred soil where the Murrah Building once stood, capturing and preserving forever the place and events that changed the world. The design was selected in an international design competition including 624 entries submitted from every state and 23 countries. The design is intended to frame the moment of the fateful blast at 9:02 a.m. One end reads 9:01 and the other 9:03.

Each chair represents a person who died in the bombing. The little ones represent the children. Each row represents which floor they were on when they died.


It is one of those beautiful places where you contemplate all the "what ifs" in the world and just remember the picture of the limp body of Baylee Almon cradled gently by the firefighter. She had turned 1 just the day before she died in the blast. I was in awe by how quiet the memorial was. Everyone demonstrated the appropriate contemplation that the memorial invokes. You can't help but be touched when you see the walls of what was the Murrah Federal Building edging one end of the outdoor memorial. The chairs. Ohmigod, the little chairs, in particular. That day rushes vividly to my mind. I had just dropped Pickle off at daycare and got in the car and heard the news. Then, working at a newspaper made it easier to do, but I was glued to the news coverage on TV. I just couldn't believe someone could do that and in little bitty Oklahoma City - the heart of small-town America. It still seems almost surreal that it really happened. But, this memorial is done very, very well. I went through the museum back in early 2001 and it was incredible. I remember so much about it. I highly recommend going and planning on spending about three hours. There is a lot to see.