Do you remember the Oklahoma City bombing?  I don’t know why but it came into my mind today.  I have actually been working on a piece about 9/11 so I guess I was in the right frame of mind for it. 

From Wikipedia:  “The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. It was the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Oklahoma blast claimed 168 lives, including 19 children under the age of 6, and injured more than 680 people. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a sixteen-block radius, destroyed or burned 86 cars, and shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings. The bomb was estimated to have caused at least $652 million worth of damage.”

Looking at pictures and video of the attacks on the World Trade Center towers brought as many tears to my eyes as on 9/11/2001 as I watched from the relative “safety” of my home in Utah.  Far from the chaos and terror.   Just as when Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols brought down their terror and destruction to Oklahoma City.   A surreal feeling of shock and numbness and disbelief as you watch lives being taken and torn apart knowing there is nothing you could possibly do at that moment to help or change ANYthing.  Grateful that you have been spared this time and knowing it could be any of us at any time.

I suppose these feelings and thought must be old news to people in war torn parts of the world.  How do you take in so much pain and sadness and fear and not be forever marked by it?  So many stories that we will probably never hear them all in our lifetime.  Stories of heartbreak and stories of heroism.  Stories of man’s inhumanity to man and stories of great humanity displayed by otherwise average people.

What lessons will we take from all of this that will make tomorrow a better day for our children and our children’s children?  May we find them and put them to good use and may they never be forgotten.  Peace be with you.

(Since OS won't let me embed a video today, click here for "Have You Seen Me Lately by the Counting Crows)