Sixteen Years Later
Entry posted by dviddy
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Bumped for continued relevance, one year later.
The Oklahoma City Bombing was (and remains) the largest act of domestic terrorism in the United States' history. It happened on April 19, 1995, five days after my little brother was born, as he lay, barely living in the NICU, five weeks premature.
I was in second grade. And we were afraid. Nineteen children, all under the age of six, died in the Murrah Building blast.
I am an Oklahoman, and proud to be from Tulsa. Oklahoma City is a mere hour drive from my home, and I have visited the memorial countless times.
As an Oklahoma, I grew up after this event with a very angry and hateful feeling towards Timothy McVeigh, the man responsible for this horrible moment. A moment that affected the families of people I knew, relatives of friends. People I knew never saw their uncles, their aunts, their new cousins ever again.
There is a pain in grief akin to nothing else.
And the second worst pain may be to watch someone grieving, and be helpless in action.
I have watched my state grieve for fifteen years. I watched as Timothy McVeigh was executed on television.
And I cheered. Oklahoma cheered.
And another family lost their son.
Grief has the power to change our perceptions. To distort reality as we attempt to cope with events so out of our control.
From our grief, we let fear grip our hearts. And when we let fear grip our hearts, we lashed out in hate.
Terrorism strives to strike fear into people, to make them aware of the frailty of the institutions they cling to. To leave them exposed.
And the OKC Bombing succeeded.
So we clung to the one institution we knew would never fail us- violence.
And we let our fear claim us.
So today, as an Oklahoman, I vow to let it go. There comes a time when grief has stayed longer than it should be welcome, when we have allowed this stranger the comforts of our roof and bed. No longer shall I allow the sway of one man's actions hold such power over my life. For fear and hatred shackle us to the past, and they inhibit our ability to look forward. When Timothy McVeigh was injected with death, when he breathed his last mortal breath, all that fear, all that hatred, was left with nowhere to go, nowhere to turn. So it grows restless, it lashes out, and it burns outwards from within, consuming as it grows.
So, Timothy McVeigh:
Your actions were inexcusable, and the consequences unimaginable. Lives are still touched by your ripple, and the very fabric of too many lives, some I know personally, were forever frayed and torn. But your actions were not the only evil. The hatred we harbored for you was the second evil perpetrated that day. Your actions were wrong, the toll egregious, and the pain is still fresh. But I have no intentions of letting you shackle me, your actions to possess power over me. So I forgive you.
And may God have mercy on your soul.
I can't say you didn't receive that which your actions deserved. But as a wizened wizard once told me, many are those who live and deserve death, and many are those who die that deserve life. But I am not wise enough to be the one who dolls such judgment on the world.
(And neither were you.)
May we bury all of our ghosts, and look to the future.
A future of hope.
For there is only one way to peace. And it is not through hate.
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