Dear Friends:
The events in Egypt and London, England have shaken the world. Predictable responses of fear and anger are part of what we read every day. The rise of hatred seems uncontrollable. The Moslem world, along with the rest of the survivors of terror, girds for another bout of ignorance and violence. Yet, the Peace Village continues to work for an alternative through individual and group responses that show that terrorism will not stamp out peace work, only make our efforts more creative. I look for examples of healing that do emphasize healing for all, and for the kind of work that deepens understanding of the sources of compassion. I am hoping that a friend who has journeyed to Gaza this past few weeks will report on his experience of working for compassion even though he was kidnapped, released and is now heading back to Cleveland. I will be writing about the work of the local National Conference of Community and Justice to promote healing and understanding through their experiential learning through "Anytown." And, I have other stories to tell that suggest to me that young and old are fighting off the heat of prejudice, reviving the spirit of resistance of despair, and fostering courage to care across race, religion, class, and disability. Recently, upon finishing a wonderful talk about my experiences in Indonesia, a nine year old African-American child, in one of our poorest sections of Cincinnati, came over to me, patted my hand, and said, "Keep up the good work."
It is in this spirit that I want to share a short and remarkable account of what is happening in Oklahoma City since the bombing. It is written and reproduced by permission of two professional story tellers, Patti Christensen and James Nelson-Lucas. Please read and comment. (Patti is the daughter of Bob and Mary Weaver. Bob is, at 93, a crisis worker and minister at Twin Towers Retirement Community in Cincinnati, and with Mary, a co-founder of the Cincinnati Free Store, continue to work for peace and justice in the Peace Village.)
The Oklahoma City National Memorial
Our Journey by Patti Christensen and James Nelson Lucas
We returned this week from the National Storytelling Network's national conference in Oklahoma City. Several hundred storytellers from around the country gathered for nearly a week's worth of workshops, speeches, story swapping and other activities. It was a very important and powerful conference.
One of the most important and moving experiences had to do with the place where the conference happened: Oklahoma City. This conference moves around the country from west coast to east cost, north to south. This year the folks in Oklahoma took their turn as hosts.
On the first whole day of the conference we had an extraordinaire experience. Oklahoma City is, of course, famous for being the site of a tragic bombing of the Federal building 10 years ago, which resulted in the deaths of 168 people. There is now a memorial there-run by a private foundation and the National Park Service. As it turns out, the head Ranger in charge of the Memorial is also a professional storyteller. She was very proud to share with us the memorial and its amazing story-both of the events ten years ago and the stories of those who died, those who lived, their families and rescue workers. In groups of fifty, conference participants were brought by bus to the Memorial where we received an orientation and then could go through the museum and walk the grounds of the memorial. Those who waited at the conference center had the chance to hear first person accounts from survivors, family members and rescue workers. Many of the same survivors and family members serve as docents at the museum. We went in the first group to the monument.
Here is the brief rundown of the "facts":
The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was a United States Government complex located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and the target of the Oklahoma City bombing.
The federal building was constructed in 1977 at a cost of $14.5 million, and was named for federal judge Alfred P. Murrah, an Oklahoma native. By the 1990s the building contained regional offices for the Secret Service, the Drug Enforcement Agency (D.E.A.), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and other agencies.
On the morning of April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh parked a rented Ryder truck with explosives in front of the complex and, at 9:02am, a massive explosion occurred which sheared off the entire north side of the building, killing 168 people.
Following an investigation and recovery of victims' bodies, the surviving structure was demolished with explosives on May 23, 1995. The Water Resources Board and Athenian Building were heavily damaged and later destroyed. 16 buildings were destroyed and many more were severely damaged. The site later became home to the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum.
The vision statement for the Memorial is:
We come here to remember those who were killed, those who survived, those changed forever. May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May this memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity.
There are so many things we could tell you about the experience of visiting the memorial: The memorial itself is built on the site of the Federal building. Where there had been a street is now a reflection pool. There are empty chairs sitting in rows on the site for each person who was killed: large chairs for the adults, smaller chairs for the 15 children killed. Six of the women who died were pregnant and their babies' names are also written on their chairs.
We first gathered at "the survivor tree". This American Elm, planted in the 1920's was in the parking lot of the Federal building. Although much around it was burnt and destroyed, the tree remained. It is the heart of the memorial symbolizing the strength to survive.
As you go into the building which houses the museum (put in a building that had damage, but wasn't destroyed by the bomb) there is a hush of solemnity.
The exhibit has a number of "chapters" in telling the story. The beginning sets the stage. It was just a regular old workday in April: April 19th 1995. The federal building which officed many different departments was busy in the way any large governmental office building might be. People in meetings, getting coffee, waiting for appointments, talking on the phone. Kids had been dropped off at their on-site childcare center. A day like a thousand other spring days. The exhibit helps you to get into that space.
Then you are let into a room like any hearing room of a government agency: The Water Resource board was holding hearings. A hearing began at 9:00am for a man who was seeking permission to drill for water on his land to be bottled and sold. We listen to the audiotape of this hearing. At 9:02, we hear a blast, the lights flicker on and off. When they come back on, photos of all those who died where shown on the wall. Then a door opens: As we walk through Chaos ensues. The next hour or so takes us through some of what it was like in those early hours and days.
Throughout this next section we are barraged with images, TV reports (reporters where able to be on site within 15 minutes of the blast, which was felt as far away as 50 miles or more). There are also snips of interviews with survivors talking about what it was like. One woman was in a regular staff meeting one minute, and the next she was alive while all other 8 co-workers had been killed.
We heard the heartbreaking stories of parents rushing to the building to get their children only to be told that there were no children there. One mother said, "But of course there are. I dropped my daughter off only 15 minutes ago." 15 children died in that second floor children care center.
We saw the strangest images of how the building cracked and fell: photos of whole rooms totally devastated with the coffeepot left full and undisturbed. We also saw piles of artifacts that had been removed: mounds of keys chains, coffee mugs from workers' desks, crushed telephones, the building's flag which somehow remained intact.
Then we saw the heroic stories of the rescue workers at work immediately searching, searching, pulling people from the rubble at great personal risk, being twice pulled out the building due to another false bomb thereat so they had to leave trapped people behind while they frantically awaited the "all clear" sign.
The rescue effort continued for 16 days. Rescue workers from around the nation arrived to bring fresh backs, and fresh spirit to this horrible, sad work.
A sad note was that a team of nine rescue workers from NY City who toiled alongside these workers in Oklahoma were later killed in the 9/11 rescue work. The Oklahoma City folks were a very strong support to those in New York City being able to say "We know what you are going through."
There were eventually 125 chaplains who responded to the call. Many were on site for days and days on end. There was always a chaplain on duty down in "the pit", the basement where the wreckage was the very worst, and the work painstaking and heartbreaking as workers struggled, after a while beyond hope to find survivors and they eventually had to move into hoping to find bodies. One chaplain shared the story of having identified what turned out to be the final survivor trapped in the basement only to see that a huge terrible storm was coming in. They were going to need to abandon her: the building was so unstable that the high winds and rain might collapse everything. The chaplains all gathered and they prayed, for the young woman and the weather. The clouds then parted, the storm moved around them and the 15 year-old girl was safely rescued.
A family center was soon set up for those families who wanted to wait and hold vigils. One man reported that at the family center, when a body was found, your name would be called and then you were brought into a room with a chaplain, a counselor and a funeral director. What heartbreak.
Many of those who survived felt tremendous guilt, why should I survive when others died? Their suffering continues today.
After going through all the story of the bombing and the aftermath, the museum takes you to the next floor that is dedicated to those who died. Each family was asked to contribute a photo and one item that symbolized their loved one. Some couldn't find just one thing, while others found it too profoundly sad and difficult to bring anything, but those items we saw where heartrending; a two year old's pacifier, a note from a elementary school child to her mom:" I miss you everyday. I am growing like a weed.", baseball caps, items off a desk, some profound and some silly. All showing these were real people with lives cut so short.
There were also places for those who came to respond: journals to write in, a children's sidewalk chalk area, and a chain link fence which originally cordoned off the dangerous blast area. This fence which has become a collecting area for people to leave photos, flowers, stuffed animals, keychains. Every couple of months, the archivists collects and store them. The stuffed animals are then send on to children around the world who are in crisis.
We left the monument deeply moved, most having wept throughout this sad, sad place, yet also moved to find hope in going on.
If you'd like to see photos and read more about the Memorial, take a look at their website at: HYPERLINK "http://www.oklahomacitynationalmemorial.org/" http://www.oklahomacitynationalmemorial.org/
You can also listen to an interview that we did about our visit to the memorial (we have been able to listen to this on most computersŠsome systems do not appear to be able to pull it up. Oh, technology): HYPERLINK "http://www.storyteller.net/news/2005/07/330/" http://www.storyteller.net/news/2005/07/330/
Now, as though that wouldn't be enough, there was more of this story to be told. On the final morning of the conference we had to opportunity to hear Bud Welch, the father of a 23-year-old young woman who was killed.
He shared the story of his daughter, Julie, a bright lively wonderfully talented young woman. She was working as an interpreter at the Federal building. She had been in the lobby meeting her 9:00 appointment when the blast went off.
Bud took us through those early days and months of dealing with this tragedy. He painted a very hopeless and dismal picture. He turned to cigarettes and drinking himself to sleep each night, deep in despair and depression. Finally after ten months he asked himself one day: what will it take for me to move on? A trial, life imprisonment, executions? He began to try to sort this all out. Early on, he thought that having the murderers killed would be the answer, but as time went forward he began to change his mind. He said, that when McVeigh was executed, at that time about half the families were in support of that. However, he reported that as far as he knows none of them got the peace and the closure that they had hoped would come from such an act.
Bud has now become an international activist speaking against the death penalty. He shared a lot of very powerful and difficult facts about the death penalty. Not only was he able to speak about he death penalty not really helping the surviving family members, but also talked about one in 8 people on death row is eventually released because "mistakes were made." And also that they "only kill the easy ones" which means those who are poor without resources. He cited many cases of those with money getting off, while the poor and people of color being killed. He is an extremely eloquent and knowledgeable speaker. Fairly astounding for a man without any college. He had worked for 38 years as the owner/operator of the local Texaco station.
He ended by telling us of a meeting he had with Timothy McVeigh's father. They met at the father's country home, went out into his garden, and Bud said as soon as he stepped into that garden so lovingly tended, he know "we would find common ground." They spoke for many hours and Bud was able to find compassion in his heart for the father of his daughter's killer. He said "I get to go to bed every night missing my daughter but full of pride. McVeigh's father has no peace."
This journey of healing and forgiveness was such a privilege to hear about. This man is such a blessing on the planet. Part of what the family members and the survivors of this terrible act wanted is for their loved ones not to have died in vain. That somehow hope and goodness remain and that their stories live on.
We thank you for sharing with us our encounter with this amazing story.
Permission is granted to duplicate or share this story as long as it is credited as written by Patti Christensen & James Nelson Lucas c2005
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