Wednesday, April 19, 2006

I'll Never Forget....Will You???


April 19, 1995...a date forever etched into the minds of Oklahomans and many Americans forever.

I remember this day well. I live in Oklahoma City, and I did back then too. MrKB and I had just been married barely two months before. We lived in a small one-bedroom apartment, and we both worked nights at Buy For Less grocery store.

The bomb went off at 9:02am...we were in bed asleep...we both woke up at the same exact moment, looked at each other, then looked at the clock...it read 9:03am. Neither one of us was sure at that point what had woke us up, but we think now that we felt the blast that had just occured less than 10 miles away. At the time, though, we thought nothing of it and went back to sleep.

About an hour and a half later, my Mom called us and told us to turn on the TV. I remember just being frozen in place and staring in disbelief at what I was seeing. This couldn't be Oklahoma City!! Stuff like this doesn't happen here!

I had to go to work that day, but I wanted desperately to be down there helping...I felt like I should be doing SOMETHING to help, even if I didn't know what I could do...It didn't matter though, they were turning people away because so many had showed up.

168 people died that day. Including this little girl, who was just one year old:

Her name was Baylee...

Thankfully, I didn't know anybody personally that died that terrible day, but I knew people who did lose relatives or friends...One girl we worked with lost an uncle and a cousin.

The day brought out the best in Oklahomans, and Americans everywhere. People came from all over to help us recover, just as they did later in New York and most recently in New Orleans.

And recover we did.


This is the Survivor Tree. It is an American Elm and survived the blast. It was already over 100 years old at the time of the bombing. It still stands and thrives today at the Oklahoma City National Memorial. I visited the memorial, only once, because it is painful...I hugged this very tree while there.


Oklahoma and I will never forget.....will you???

13 comments:

Queen Of Cheese said...

I stole your pics, they were better than the one I had. I didn't have time this a.m. to look for good pics but now I think I'll just use yours! Excellant post!

MamaKBear said...

Feel free! I don't mind a bit. :)

And Thank you!

GERBEN said...

I cry every time I think about it. I’m crying right now. When Hubby and I were in OKC last month, I was looking at the quilt they had on display at the Maps Library & the “Precious Moments” statue that is a rendition of the firefighter and baby Baylee. I cried then as well. No, I will never forget. How can anyone ever forget?

cmhl said...

wow--- that is amazing that it was so long ago. I distinctly remember being on a business trip and just pulling over in my rental car in a parking lot, and listening to the news coverage. how horrible.

SignGurl said...

Amazing post! I can remember exactly what I was doing at the time I heard about it. I'm glad you reminded people.

This is a terrible day in history. It's also the day that 2 years ago my parents barn burned.

I read the post below. First of all, you are a hottie! I love the hair do. You are stunning. Second, the baby is delicious. So precious. You are a great mom.

paitl1 said...

I remember it well, I was on a band trip to the OSU campus for a contest. We all walked over to Eskimo Joe's and saw it on tv as we walked in the door. We were all shocked.

WarWagon said...

I have very vivid memories of that day. I worked at Sonic headquarters downtown just a few blocks from the explosion. It was just terrible seeing all the destruction that far away and not knowing what happened until we saw it on television...

Anonymous said...

This is one of the things that always makes me sad on my birthday. I watched in horror, and my heart ached. One day I would like to go to the memorial.

Melissa said...

I remember that day very well.
As a Canadian it seemed so far away yet so close and terrible at the same time.
Thank you for keeping the memory alive.

The Middle Child said...

I remember. What a sad sad day that was. Thanks for the remembrance.

Shannon said...

That was terrible! We had just moved from OKC 3 months before that happened. Brady was born in January 1995 and we moved the first of February. My step-brother helped remove people from the building, he was in the Airforce at Tinker.
Sad day!!!!

RJ said...

Good post Kbear ..

I remember visiting the site a couple years back when I was in Okie City .. was sooo sad. It had an eerie feeling about it .. and the wind just wouldn't stop blowing ..

Moosekahl said...

I was a junior in high school getting ready to head to the gym to decorate for prom. Oklahoma City affected me in a big way...I actually asked my parents if I could go down to help. I didn't get to and felt completely helpless. I left a post on some memorial website that weekend and a reporter called me in the middle of nowhere South Dakota and did a story on my reaction. If you google my maiden name that story still comes up.