9:03

On our trip to Oklahoma City, we stopped by the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum, the place where the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building stood before it was bombed by Timothy McVeigh on April 19, 1995.

The memorial was beautiful in its simplicity and powerful in its symbolism. The two walls at either end of the memorial are marked by the time before the bombing, the time of the bombing and the time after. 168 empty chairs stand for the 168 people who lost their lives.

The wall at the entrance reads:

We come to remember those who were killed,
those who survived and those changed forever.
May all who leave here know the impact of violence.
May this memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity.

In the hustle and bustle of daily life, conferences, decorating houses…you don’t often stop to think about the brevity of life, and you think even less about the senselessness of acts like the Oklahoma City bombing. The memorial stands as a powerful reminder of both.