Falling Thoughts

Such a beautiful morning.
Like that first one
Blue, blue sky
And bright, bright sun.
Small teasing breeze
Sifting through the trees
Children laughing, at play
Just as it was that day

That day before the loud
Shocking
Sickening sound
Of hate spilling over
The heart of our city
Wounding and killing
Evil without pity.

But this place
Defies that hate.
This place, like our city,
Is filled with love
And with pity,
Charity,
Mercy,
Peace.

It pours over you
As you walk
This quiet, lovely spot
Where once there was
Pain and destruction.
Finally I have the
Lovely image of this peace
Instead of the end of that
Ravaged building
In my mind.

I needed to see this,
Needed to actually walk here
To make peace with the sorrow
To no longer see
That ruined place
When I look up from the church cloister
So nearby.
Far too nearby.

Sleep well, dear beloved souls.
Dear little ones
Two of whom,
I knew their Aunt.
I still weep
Sometimes
For the potential lost.

This truly is the heart
Of this city,
Indeed,
Of the state.
The love poured out
On those who suffered loss
On those who came to help
On each other to see us through.
April 19,1995
Was the day I became an Oklahoman.

To See Changes
C.K. Armistead
9/24/16

I am still not adept
At reading subtle
Changes in the seasons
For I grew up without them.
Seasons, that is.
It is a new art for me
To pick out which details
I see and discern
What is to come
What I can learn
From the fact that
The south wind today
Is both warm and cool
The caterpillars I see
Are all
Well covered in  thick wool.
The pecan tree out back
Is generously throwing
Nuts around.
Which the squirrels are
Both eating
And hiding
With frenzied abandon.
The sycamore trees
Seem out to get me
Throwing pollen-laden
Ball bearing bombs
At me
To roll my ankle
And/or make me sneeze.
No leaves have turned as yet
No cool nights as yet have
Blessed us
But the calendar says
Fall has begun.

 Journal entry: Sept. 22, 2016

I stood this day upon sacred ground.
Ground where innocents were injured and killed
Where a community's innocence was lost.
I stood,remembering little ones I had never met,
but whose loss still made me weep.
I found the name of a friend on the Survivors list,
and offered a little prayer of thanks
That she survived,
That she is still here
To tell her story,
To be loved, to be my friend,
And my sister in Christ.
She, who stood with me at my Confirmation at St. Paul's,
Our church, just two blocks away.

The place is beautiful,
It is amazingly quiet
In spite of the city teeming all around it.
Every Sunday, and most Wednesdays for the past 21 years,
I have passed this place, spent time in its shadow,
In the shade of all that happened that day.
My church family survived a journey in the wilderness -
Worshiping in our parish hall for almost 2 years while our beautiful
Cathedral was rebuilt.
So much time has passed, but sometimes,
Especially when I walked into that sacred space of the Memorial,
It seems so fresh, I feel it all again.
There are children who have grown up, and new members of our church family, who do not remember that day, that time.
The horror, the hurt, the confusion is alien to them. The museum helps.  It makes that moring live again, gives visitors a sense of how ordinary the day was- 
Until 9:02 am, anyway, and how after that,
Nothing here was ever the same again,
Especially us.


My husband made his first visit to the Memorial today.  He hasn't been there since he worked as a volunteer with the contingent sent from Tinker AFB to help remove rubble.  I think he found some measure of peace with the fact that healing has happened in that place, that all the hands that came to help were appreciated and added to the love that surrounded our wounded heart that day, and in the weeks following.

Remembering, Part 2

The Broken Cross that was atop our Cathedral.

Our regular 11 am church service was attended at about the usual level for a post-Easter Sunday.  Not a big crowd.  I saw several faces that were here 20 years ago.  Our current Dean, however, was not.  He spoke in his sermon about how it was impossible for those not here at that time to really understand how the bombing affected us.  He's right.  There's no real way to explain it. 
In my case, the bombing threatened the one place here in Oklahoma City that had become a place of comfort for me:  St. Paul's.  We may not have attended every week, but we went fairly often, and St. Paul's was a place I WANTED to be after that horrible morning, a place I needed to feel centered, closer to God.  Though the church was still standing, there was a LOT of structural damage to the Cathedral itself.  The Parish House and Dean Willey Hall were all right, if a bit banged up, but the Cathedral couldn't be used.  It took us two years to get it back in service. 
Saint Paul's gave me a way to be useful in the recovery efforts.  I volunteered to help in the garden, I helped stuff envelopes and served on a committee or two, but Matt and I found our true calling when we tried out for Cathedral Choir and were accepted.  We've been there ever since.  20 years in July.  We also helped by providing good things to eat after the 11 am service at least one Sunday a month, so people would stay and chat awhile instead of rushing off.  We did that for many years, until it became too much of a financial burden and logistical strain.  For awhile, there  were others, and then, all of the sudden, it seems, there was no one else wanting to help.  Needs change, and there just hasn't been the demand for our "after the 11"  time anymore. 

I have never gone to walk the outdoor portion of the Memorial.  I took my Mom and my sister and aunt to the museum, but it was warm out, and my Mom and my aunt didn't really want to walk around outside that much.  Matt doesn't really want to go to the museum.  He says he'd rather not remember all the things he saw and felt during the recovery effort.  He went to all the debriefs, and made sure his Airmen went, too, but he's done with it.  Maybe because all I could do was watch and wait, I want to remember, to see how far we've come.  But I cry whenever I see the pictures of the Coverdale boys.  Their aunt worked in Matt's squadron.  I had seen their pictures on her desk.  To see them in that museum, and know those little ones were gone, it just really got to me. 

For awhile this afternoon, we had bright sun, then the clouds rolled in, and we had a little thunderstorm.  Now the sun is back for the most part, the wind chasing clouds across it now and then.  This day, when the sun is shining, looks a lot like that day did.  Bright, unbelievably beautiful blue Oklahoma sky.  Until you saw the smoke.  Until you heard the news.  Until the tears made it rain all over this state.  That's when everybody started taking roll call in their heads.  "Where's so and so? They weren't headed downtown, were they?"  The phone calls to friends and family who work downtown, the anxious waiting.  Then the news.  The neighbors and friends of friends lost, the fellow parishioner injured, all the children lost and hurt.  Dear God, the poor little children, who hadn't done anything to anybody.  The beauty of the weather that day seemed surreal in contrast to all that was happening. 

Today's weather is moody.  The sunlight comes and goes, storms threaten and back off.  It is so much more representative of what that day was like emotionally. 
I sat in the loft today, as I always do on Sundays, and I thought of the people of our parish that made a difference that day who aren't with us anymore.  Especially Jim and Nick.  Jim was getting Mobile Meals ready to deliver that Wednesday morning, and refused to leave the kitchen until they were all out. Even when there was a scare about a possible second bomb, and they were evacuating the area.  Nick ran to the YMCA daycare to check on some of our youngest parishioners, who attended that daycare.  He found at least one, and offered the comfort of a familiar presence until their parents could get to them.  They have both passed on.  I miss them.  I marvel at how grown up all the children are who were so tiny in those days.  All young adults and beginning to make their mark on the world these days.  Those kiddos all know how much they are loved.  The losses that day made us all more aware of those precious little ones in our lives, and made us all more appreciative, and perhaps a little more patient, a little more likely to listen. 

This has not been as eloquent as perhaps some of my previous posts have been.  This year, I have had less time to ponder things.  I have been busy with things that I did not have in my life when the bombing happened.  The realization that tomorrow is not guaranteed helped get me moving, and now I have a job and responsibility I didn't have then.  I have had this job for 16 years now, but I have never gotten to attend an out of state conference before, and I just got back from one, so my brain is full of that, and how to process that, and what paperwork I have to complete, and so I have not had time to ponder the fact that the bombing was 20 years ago. 
All I can tell you is, the events surrounding that bombing are what began the process of us adopting Oklahoma as home.  Matt was still active duty at the time.  We didn't have to stay here when he retired a few years later, but we had become attached to this place, to the people, to our church, our community.  The Oklahoma Standard is a real thing.  It is an attitude that you see nearly every day.  People here watch out for each other.  Kindness is surprisingly common.    I only hope we can all live up to that standard as time goes on.