Experience the Terror: Oklahoma City Bombing National Memorial and Museum

As you first look to the site and your eyes take in the first trilithon gate, their enormity humbles. Time begins to slow. Sounds of the surrounding city dampen and fade.

Entering, compelled by an ethereal beckoning, the lintel marked, nine-oh-one, passes far above - present time disperses. Moving beyond, legs are inclined to fail, hands and heart shiver with the resonance of the violence done here. Had history not recorded the event, had no monument been built, a body would know, would feel the terror met here. The intense flooding of emotion bears down and requires you to slow.

At the reflecting pool - nine-oh-two - the heart beats a little louder as the pool calls your mind to look, see and remember this time, nine-oh-two.

Reflected there on the watery surface are the gates of this time, 9:01 and 9:03, sentinels flanking the ends, yet bending toward one another in the reflection, they form a bubble in time-

Blue skies and fluffy white clouds skid across the surface, heaven joins the amalgamation of celestial bodies, kept safe here in this space without time, where the corporeal may intermingle. Nine-oh-two stretches out unnaturally; a moment's time lengthens, seeming to correspond directly with the length of the pool . . . a time that captured unwary souls, indiscriminately.

It takes a willful demand to turn from that seductive glassy surface. To the left stand the remains of the Federal building. A small wall juts out; its edge is raw. The rest torn away, rendered to dust.

You swallow, realizing that this little bit of wall stands as a testament to those who survived and remain, a small tree grows against it - proof that life continues. Further forward, on the inside of this small wall, is the larger wall that survived, and listed there are the names of those who escaped this evil demolition.

Pausing, you look at the names, but see only a jumble of letters through blurred vision. You linger for moments, not because you hope to read the names, but to avoid turning around . . . you gather your strength. It takes courage to go forward. Realizing that you are merely a guest, that what you feel of the pain and struggle of those who were unwilling participants is insignificant by comparison, and then you feel shamed by your cowardice.

The green grass is so alive in color that it almost blinds in its brightness, forcing the eye to look upward from the ground.

The field ahead of you fills all sight, awareness strikes with potency and is so great that the visitor's guide remains unread, forgotten. Unconsidered, the fingers curl the guide within a fist. One need not look at it really, not here . . . the chairs explain themselves. Each chair sits where their missing occupants were on that day. Empty chairs dot the green in nine rows, in suggestion of the nine floors of the building. The mind does not consider the building, only the chairs.

The path leads around the green lawn of chairs. What choice, but to follow?

The rows of chairs, which had seemed so even, orderly and steady give way to unevenness- a chair here, a chair there - then you stop.

Your eyes alight upon another chair, much like the others, but very much different. It is too small, smaller than the rest . . . a small voice articulates; they are children's chairs. With an urgent agony you scan the field of chairs, frantically counting the small ones, adding up the innocence lost here . . . 19. Stolen. Nineteen little lives snatched away! There can be NO just cause! A hole opens in the soul for the crushed hearts of the parents who lived beyond that day.

The path leads to the gate of nine-oh-three. Through that gate, out there the world will be different. Dueling, emotions are at war. One begs to exit through that gate, for as much as time languishes here, a transcending pain roils. This otherworldly pain reaches out from the ground, it is part of every air particle you breathe, it's reflected in that pool, and it speaks to you on the breeze. The mind knows, somehow, it is important to continue.

The walk continues around, the feet follow the path, no matter the hearts whimpered cries to exit through gate 9:03.

A tree stands tall on the other side. Obstinately it remains, defying the death that reaped here that day, the Survivor Tree. The hope it offers is ineffectual to shoring up the gaping hole that exposes the spirit to this place, but it is enough to propel laden legs to climb the steps of the continuing path.

Once the steps recede, the feet fail their volition. There upon the wall, a message is writ. Through the wielding of man's hand, the Almighty declares; through the voice of a child, He reads: "Team 5, 4-19-95, We search for the truth. We seek Justice. The courts Require it. The Victims Cry for it. And GOD Demands it."

The chest buckles beneath the weight of the words, and the sincerity of the innocent lips that utter them. Awash within, a surge of pain threatens to overcome . . . grappling for the merest flotsam you clutch upon the nearest fragment.

Yes! Outrage tethers you! Anger is a poultice to the pain that echoes from those chairs behind. Seizing those, outrage and anger, you are saved from the swelling of that sea and propelled onward.

Our beloveds reach the Children's area first. Tiles of offered love cover a dividing wall, small hands painted each, endowing each square with all the love and hope that dwells, untainted within the breast of a child . . . pure. That purity of faith is a balm that soothes the aching throb of that hole. Yet, this overwhelms. Our babies kneel upon the ground, poised over the inlayed chalkboards, where they write and draw their own offering of love, God's favor, and hope.

The gasp escapes your lips, tears flow freely, and the heart beats alternatively: pain - love - anguish - hope - loss - faith . . . creating a dirge that fills the mind, reverberates in the soul, and laments to the spirit.

The museum stands as a collective memorial to the lives of the people caught in the tragedy that befell our nation on 19 April 1995. Within this building, you will learn the background of terror. You learn the history of the site. Then you enter a recreation of that day; you are now privy to a hearing of the Oklahoma Water Resources Board. The tape, recorded that day, plays now, transporting you. A woman's disembodied voice drones on, it lulls you. She covers the issues at hand, her voice is so . . . normal. You stand - breath abated, she doesn't know! But, you do.

The explosion resonates, people cry out in surprise, chairs scrape the floor . . . then the door opens to the chaos that followed.

Voices of news anchors inundate along with the rotors of a helicopter, life-size pictures fill your vision, videos move you through the footsteps of those forced to walk this path first. You experience the urgency of the rescuers as they valiantly brave the unimaginable. Then you suffer the agony of the "stand-down" when the rescuers are forced away from the site while a possible threat is investigated.

The path leads on . . . the world offers its condolences . . . the victims offer their stories.

The Gallery of Honor holds a capsule for each of those lost. Items representing their lives, moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas and children, fill each box. Through it all, you must have a certain amount of detachment; otherwise, you cannot get through.

Then a child has paused near a box containing a stuffed bear. You approach; it is another artifact from the wreckage. Most every item holds a plaque listing where found and to whom it belonged. The child looks up from the bear, tears welled in the eyes . . . Frantically you look for the source of this child's pain . . . and you find it . . . on the plaque reads, "Unclaimed."

"It's just a stuffed toy," you tell yourself. Maybe, just maybe it isn't unclaimed because the child to whom it belonged is no longer here to claim it . . . maybe the child is well, making the bear unimportant. Maybe.

From there the eyes avert from those little plaques beneath the artifacts.

Some with great fortitude stop at recorded video feeds, virtually visiting with and listening to the survivors recount their stories. Some are too dazed to do so. Some must move toward Justice and Rebuilding, then look for Hope. Upon reaching the area dedicated to hope, you inhale a deep breath, shaky, but another and another brings steadiness. In this area, a waterfall soothes, bronze origami birds reflect sparkles of light, and windows overlook the reflecting pool and field of chairs . . . the children begin to rebound to their normal selves.

Visiting the Children's area is then possible, after the restoration of hope. The kids pause in awe over the penny lane, made with 27,000 pennies, but move on with exuberance toward the "classroom," leaving you to peruse the editorial cartoons. Breathing easier now, you can even smile about some of the cartoons, albeit, ruefully.

Time resumes its normal pace once you exit the Gates of Time. Sounds of normal life replace the whirring heard within that bubble where time stretches, and woe churns. You look again toward the 9:01 Gate.

One the kids proclaim hunger, then another. You turn back to your life, vowing as you do, that you will remember. Taking with you the reinforced knowledge of how precious your children are; how precious your country is; how fleeting life can be . . . everything looks different, you are changed.

Petty grievances fall away. Respect flourishes. A renewed vigor infuses the heart and soul.