OOOOOOOOOOOklahoma.........
Yep! We are in Oklahoma! We came out here this week to spend some time with our family. My sister and her family live out here, and Dee has an aunt that lives not too far away from them. Coming out here was one of the first things we decided to do when we started making plans for our time in the states. I am so glad that we did! I have thoroughly enjoyed our time out here!
We started our week off with a trip to the Oklahoma City bombing memorial. There is really no way to describe the feeling of grief.... respect... and peace at the memorial. The site sits in the middle of the downtown area, but is set in such a way that you don't see cars or hear traffic. There is a strange feeling standing there and thinking about what happened on that spring day in 1995.
There are three main sections to the memorial. The first is the reflecting pool and giant black walls. The time: 9:01 and 9:03 are each inscribed on a wall. These times mark the moment before the bomb - a time of innocence, and the time after the explosion - when nothing will be the same.
The second section is a green field where the building stood. There are chairs with the names of the individuals that were killed. Each chair is located in the field in a way so that it marks out where they were when the bomb went off.
The final section is the Survivor Tree. This tree is over 100 years old, and survived the blast despite the fact that the force of the blast ripped most of the branches off of it, glass and debris were embedded in its trunk, and fire from the cars parked beneath it burned it. Most people thought the tree could not survive. Almost a year after the bombing, however, family members, survivors, and rescue workers gathered for a memorial ceremony under the tree that had started to bloom once again. In that instant the tree became a symbol of what the city had come through.
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We started our week off with a trip to the Oklahoma City bombing memorial. There is really no way to describe the feeling of grief.... respect... and peace at the memorial. The site sits in the middle of the downtown area, but is set in such a way that you don't see cars or hear traffic. There is a strange feeling standing there and thinking about what happened on that spring day in 1995.
There are three main sections to the memorial. The first is the reflecting pool and giant black walls. The time: 9:01 and 9:03 are each inscribed on a wall. These times mark the moment before the bomb - a time of innocence, and the time after the explosion - when nothing will be the same.
The second section is a green field where the building stood. There are chairs with the names of the individuals that were killed. Each chair is located in the field in a way so that it marks out where they were when the bomb went off.
The final section is the Survivor Tree. This tree is over 100 years old, and survived the blast despite the fact that the force of the blast ripped most of the branches off of it, glass and debris were embedded in its trunk, and fire from the cars parked beneath it burned it. Most people thought the tree could not survive. Almost a year after the bombing, however, family members, survivors, and rescue workers gathered for a memorial ceremony under the tree that had started to bloom once again. In that instant the tree became a symbol of what the city had come through.
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Labels: America, US history
3 Comments:
beautiful pictures
JODIE
Wallace,
This is interesting because I just got finished reading a nonfiction book about the Oklahoma City bombing. -Jack
i understand what you're saying...i've been there and it's so, i don't know what to say...you just have to be there to feel it.
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