Visiting a National Memorial

About 2 weeks ago my family and I had a great opportunity to visit the Oklahoma City National Memorial.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with this memorial, this is a monument to commemorate and memorialize a sad event in my country's history.

On April 19, 1995 the Heartland of the United States was attacked and my country was changed forever.  This is when at 9:02am the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was taken down by a truck bomb.  Because of that 168 people lost their lives, including 19 children, along with hundreds of people injured.

This is one of those days in my lifetime that I can tell you where I was when I heard that this had happened.  It's a time I won't forget and it's a time that shouldn't be forgotten.

I have posted earlier about my love of National Parks and my hopes to visit as many of them as possible, this list includes National Memorial.  So I knew I wanted to visit it just to "say I visited it" but I didn't realize the reaction I would have to it.

Before we walked through the memorial I quickly explained to the kids, in an age appropriate way, what they were going to see and how they should behave, thank goodness they listened to me and weren't horribly behaved.  

Of course Oklahoma is in the middle of a drought right now but when we had just a little while to walk around the memorial it was raining (most probably for the 1st time in weeks), but it was a slow and steady  rainfall that I think just added to the experience instead of ruining the experience.  I described it to my mom as tears from heaven.

So anyway....here are some pictures of the Oklahoma City National Memorial.  

(Please excuse the quality of them...I was so engrossed in the experience of being there that my picture taking suffered.)

The entrance at one end of the Memorial...you can see the memorabilia that people have left outside of the Memorial

One end of the Memorial...the minute before the bomb went off is seen here

The reflection pool that is in the location of where the truck bomb exploded.
This was the street in the front of the building.

This is where the building once stood.  There are 168 empty chairs signifying each life lost.
They are organized by the location of the person at the time of the bombing...the child are remember by child size chairs.

The Survivor's Tree.  This is a 90 yr old American Elm that survived the blast of the truck.
You can see the reflecting pool where the truck was and see how close this tree was to the blast.

The gate at the opposite end.  9:03am the minute after the bombing...time when life as we knew it changed.

Seeing this Memorial was very moving for my husband and I.  It was like we were taken back to that moment in our lives when we heard about this.  I could feel the weight of the country's sadness as I walked through but I could also feel the strength that this country has to overcome that sadness.  

We did not take the time to go through the museum that was also on site for a few reasons.  One of them being we had 10 hrs left in our drive and we needed to get on the road.  But the most important reason was that I don't think my kids are old enough yet to go through the museum and truly understand what happened.  But when they get older and start to study this we will get them back there.  

If you want to learn more about this Memorial their website is Oklahoma City National Memorial.