17 Years....

Seventeen years ago today, I was in sixth grade. During second hour, in Mrs. McDougal's class, we started hearing about a bomb that went off near a business building in downtown Oklahoma City. The Murrah Building. Although we were shocked and a bit frightened, I think we were naive to the reality of its impact. Partly because we were so young, and partly because nothing like that had really happened in our lifetime. It wasn't like today when you hear of a school shooting or a homemade bomb in a backpack left somewhere...almost weekly. 


Throughout the day, we would exchange information in the halls about who knew what and what the death toll was. During our last hour, our teacher let us listen to the radio. The number of the dead kept climbing. Unfortunately, Oklahoma isn't densely populated and most don't move too far from where they grew up...all that to say, there are very few degrees of separation between Oklahomans. It seemed that everyone knew of someone else who had a family member or friend that was killed that day. 


This is an image that is engraved in all of our minds. 

Through all of the tragedy, however, there was a resiliency and hope that permeated everything. It made me proud to be an Oklahoman, and it still does.