Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum

"The spirit of this city and this nation will not be defeated; our deeply rooted faith sustains us."

This is the inscription from the semi-circular plaza where the "Survivor's Tree," a 90-plus year old American Elm, grows at the Oklahoma City National Memorial.  The memorial honors both the living and the dead as well as the courageous people who came to help on that terrible day, and it was well worth seeing at least once.  Sometimes man-made destinations leave me feeling disappointed--as if the hype was overdone--but I'm so glad we made the trip to see this.

Many of the materials used in the memorial are from the original structure of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, including the slabs of marble where the Survivor's Tree grows.  The "Gates of Time" that stand at either end of the reflecting pool are marked with 9:01 a.m. on the left side, representing the innocence of the city before the attack.  The gate on the right is marked with 9:03 a.m., when the city was changed forever.

The reflecting pool occupies what once was NW Fifth Street.  The water is only about one inch deep, and the sound creates a peaceful setting for personal quiet thoughts.  Mike remarked how perfectly level the ground had to be for this to be effective.  The grassy area below the water is terraced.  I can imagine that when the weather is nice and the grass is green, people might sit and eat their lunch and remember those who were lost.

The most striking and moving part of the memorial, for me, at least, was the Field of Empty Chairs.  Each symbolizes a life that was lost.  The smaller chairs represent the 19 children who were killed.  The chairs are arranged in nine rows, for the nine floors of the building, and they are placed in the field according to the floor where the person was working or visiting.  Each is made of bronze and stone and rests on a glass base etched with the name of the victim.  At night, the glass base is illuminated.

These smaller chairs made me want to cry, and I did tear up at times.  I kept thinking about the families of those who died, especially the families of the children.

A portion of the original building still stands, and I was reminded of the devastation to the structure.  In all over 300 buildings in the downtown area were badly damaged.  A few collapsed in the following days.  Many were eventually razed.  A 20-block area was cordoned off as a crime scene during the investigation.  Oklahoma City was brought to a standstill.

This is the survivor's wall with the names of those who survived the blast. 

The first fence was installed to protect the site, and people began to leave remembrances.  There are now more than 60,000 items.  Some are preserved in the archives of the museum and others are used in a variety of projects.  More than 200 feet of the original fence remain, giving people the opportunity to continue to leave tokens of remembrance and hope.

This was left behind for someone's precious child.  I can only imagine the unending agony of losing a child this age to violence.  There is a large children's area as a part of the memorial.  These hand-painted tiles were sent to Oklahoma City in 1995.  They reminded me of a patchwork quilt.

There are also a series of chalkboards along with buckets of chalk where people can continue to share their thoughts while visiting.  I watched as an adult woman wrote this:

Finally, I was struck by this pair of wild mourning doves in the trees near the field of chairs.  It was as if they were placed there intentionally.  They waited patiently while I took their picture.

We visited the museum after visiting the outdoor memorial, and it was every bit as respectful and interesting as the grounds.  It is laid out in a timeline that begins by emphasizing the hum drum normalcy of the beginning of the day.  We entered through some doors and listened to a woman drone on during a hearing on an application for ground water rights.  It was in the Oklahoma Water Resources Board building, just across the street.  She begins by noting the time--9:00 a.m.--and as we listened, we heard the explosion:  BOOM!! and the ensuing pandemonium as attendees ran for their lives. 

The exhibits take up two floors and we were walked through images of the confusion and chaos, the experiences of the survivors, the world's reaction, the rescue and recovery, and the watching and waiting by the families of the survivors.  (I didn't take any pictures inside the museum.  Something about flash photography seemed disrespectful to me.)

Some of the stories really caught my attention.  One woman who was a licensed practical nurse was in the area and ran to aid in the recovery.  While she was inside the building, she was struck on the head by a piece of falling debris.  She went outside and collapsed from her injuries.  She was taken to the hospital where her initial recovery gave hopeful signs.  But she took a turn for the worse and on the fourth day, she died.

Another story was of a woman who had been in the building with her two children to pick up a social security card for one of them.  She was pinned under the rubble and her leg was amputated on site to save her life.  She survived, but her children died.

Another story was of a woman from Kentucky who reported her brother missing more than two weeks after the blast.  She didn't know he was in the building, but he was the last of the dead to be removed.

These stories and the accompanying images were both irresistible and thought-provoking.  The story of the investigation was fascinating.  As it turns out, Timothy McVeigh was already in custody on an unrelated traffic and weapons charge just two hours after the explosion.  The woman who took his fingerprints noted how surprisingly calm he was.  He hadn't been identified as the perpetrator at that point, but his calm, cool demeanor set him apart from the other prisoners.  One of the more chilling images from the museum was a picture of the Ryder truck captured by a security camera at a nearby hotel at 9:00 a.m. as it made its way down the street to the Murrah building just minutes before the explosion. 

So that's my story of the memorial.  As I said, it was well worth the 800-plus miles we drove to see it.  I've wanted to see it since I first saw images of it in a Time magazine article.  It put me in touch with the horror of the day and informed me about some facts I didn't know.  I'm very glad we came.  It did not disappoint.