Lovely, Sad April Once Again

April is a month that makes us feel vulnerable here in the Oklahoma City metro area.  No major tornadoes to remember this month, but bad storms, and the chance of tornadoes appears in April usually after a winter respite. 
No, April's lovely soft sunny mornings have been clouded for us by a memory of evil.  A memory that was burned into our hearts on April 19, 1995.  It was such a beautiful, sunny, pleasant morning.  Then the news reports started coming out about an explosion downtown.  The smoke visible on the horizon.  The worry about friends we knew worked down there.  The fear for the children we knew in the YMCA daycare near there, the church, which is only a block or two away.

I watched the news that morning in shock and with dread.  I saw familiar faces, most just in obvious shock, but one with blood on it.  It still hurts, to think about the damage to so many lives caused that day, the children lost, the sense of security we lost.  The many, many scattered pieces of our lives in downtown that had to be picked up and reassembled as best we could. 

Our church had significant damage, and it took us many years to complete all the restorations.  We never lost the most important thing, though, our love for one another, and our sense of God's love.  We are still in downtown, and we are still thriving.

Perhaps that is true of everything downtown, we are put back together physically, and for the most part, spiritually as well.  The Oklahoma City National Memorial has helped a lot with that sense of putting ourselves back together.  It is a very healing place.  A very peaceful and beautiful place.  The museum is very moving, jolting some of us back  to very clear memories of that day. 

Next year marks 20  years since the bombing.  VERY hard to believe.  Doesn't seem like it can possibly have been so long, and yet, the worst of the visible scars are long healed, and many of the psychological ones are well on the way. 

It still shocks me that anyone remotely human could have parked that truck there, under windows where they knew little children were playing, and set that explosion in motion.  Such hatred, and such misdirected violence did not solve anything.  They only presented a new set of problems.  This tragedy injured Oklahoma deeply, but it also strengthened our resolve.  That was the day I adopted Oklahoma, and vowed to stay help mend this broken heartland.  The great outpouring of love and determination to do the right thing that the world saw here was a true blessing.  People in Oklahoma are pretty tough.  You have to be to live in a place where the land and the weather turn on you at a moment's notice.  Makes us good at getting back up, at reaching out to give our neighbor a hand, at joining hands and standing strong.  When it REALLY matters, people here don't care about the things that usually divide us.  They remember that all we have is each other, good, bad, or indifferent, and they reach out and hold on to one another.  That's what made me adopt this place, that's why I stay. 
We saw it again last year when the tornadoes came.  The rest of the world responds to that by remembering that all ANY of us has is each other, and they send help, or come to help, and even though the events like the tornadoes and the bombing are horrible, they remind us that we are NOT alone or forgotten here. 
Today, the wind is high, but the sun is bright, and the sky is a beautiful blue that I have only ever seen in Oklahoma.  I don't know what Saturday will be like, since that is the actual anniversary, but this lovely morning reminded me of that lovely, doomed morning 19 years ago when I became an Oklahoman.