Weds 19 April 2023 1036hrs BST

 

I logged on to natter on about my latest kitchen success. Opened 'create new post', typed the header (date and time post begun) and realised what day it is. 

 

28 years on from that horrific day. We were in Guatemala City (Crusty on secondment there and I quite stupidly thought 'Oh yeah, no worries, I'll take my young son to do a temporary (two year) rota in a country in the midst of a civil war'), TV was cable with the majority of the channels being US ones so I had CNN rolling the background when the news hit the wires. 

 

I was running the vacuum and caught a look at the television screen, sat down on the sofa and watched the horror unfold. Fox was in class at The American School, the admin chose to keep the children on campus for several hours to ensure their transport home was safe from any copy-cat attacks so he didn't come home until much later. 13 years old having lived his entire life as the child of a military contractor, he was fully aware of the potential for terrorist attacks against Americans but I remember him being in absolute shock at the attack on American soil, he said he thought things like that only happened in the past (Pearl Harbor). He knew about the 1993 WTC bombing but it didn't affect him the way OKC did. I remember him asking 'Why do people do things like this?' but it didn't seem to impact him the way OKC two years later did.

 

And later when the perpetrators were identified as Americans, he was hurt and angry and shocked, the Oklahoma City Bombing changed my son forever. He's 41 now and I think he would agree everything changed for him (and so many other young people at the time) - but he doesn't talk about it and I doubt it is at the front of his mind as he goes about his days. But it's there, deep in his soul, just as it is for so many of the young people who were thousands of miles from OKC that day, physically unconnected but completely emotionally connected.

A few hours later the photo of a firefighter carrying little Baylee Almon out of the ruined day care centre flashed around the world and the image is still with many of us who remember 19 April 1995. 

 

Her date of birth? 18 April 1994. She would be 29years and 1day this morning if McVeigh hadn't chosen the building she was in to make his statement against the world. She died in hospital that day instead. 

 

Six years later, Timothy McVeigh was executed by lethal injection - the first federal execution in 38 years. I remember that morning as clearly as I remember the morning in April. 

I'm 66 years old. I clearly remember where I was when Kennedy was murdered, when Nixon resigned, when Saigon fell, when Dan White killed Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone (I was living in San Francisco at the time). I remember 7/7 2005 London bombing and the 1993 WTC bombing and WTC 9-11 in 2001, I remember Tehran and Tiananmen Square and the Berlin Wall and...

I'm glad that I remember - these things (and I've left out so many in the above paragraph, so many) should be remembered. We're who we are, these monstrous things WILL happen again despite all the 'Never Again' vows we make in all the aftermaths of all these horrible things. We cannot, must not live in perpetual grief but on these sad anniversaries, we must take a moment of silence and pray, yes, pray for 'Never Again' even though we understand human nature means these dreadful moments will happen. Again. 

 

My thoughts and prayers today are for all those Oklahomans who suffered such a terrible spring morning 28 years ago and doubtless still suffer. God is with them - I believe that and I pray they do as well.