.RenieRenee

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I visited the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Bld. Bombing Memorial yesterday downtown not far from the Bricktown river walk. I took a few photos and decided to make a collage of it. Visiting it was very moving. It was bombed on April 19, 1995 and I visited the memorial in 1996, but had not been back until yesterday. It was extremely hard walking by the fence with all the children’s momentous. You enter and exit through what they call “Gates of Time”, the twin gates frame the moment of destruction which was at 9:02am. One gate has 9:01am and the other has 9:03am. On the opposite side of each gate it reads “We come here 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, peach, hope and serenity.” In the middle of my collage I put the photo of one of the gates and the backs of where some of the empty chairs sit, as well as the Reflecting Pool. The pool is a shallow flowing water to help soothe wounds and create a peaceful setting. There are a total of 168 chairs to symbolize life lost, 19 of the chairs are smaller representing the 19 children killed. The chairs are arranged in 9 rows, one for each of the 9 floors of the building, they are placed according to the floor on which those killed were working or were visiting when killed. There are 4 chairs along the outer area that represent pedestrians. Each chair’s base is lit at night and is etched with the name of the victim represented. The field perimeter matches the footprint of the former Murrah Building and is lined by a granite path that was salvaged from the building. The survivor wall is the only remaining wall from the building that has the 600 names of the survivors that were injured in the blast. On the left bottom is the fence where people have left over 60,000 tokens of love, photos and/or items that belonged to the actual victims. On the bottom right is a billboard that has actual photos of the site before and after the bombing and the imploding of the remains of the building on May 23, 1995.