Remember -- and learn

Oklahoma City's memorial thunders against violence

Lisa Levitt Ryckman, News Staff Writer

Published May 12, 2001 at midnight

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OKLAHOMA CITY -- On the infamous block of 5th Street between Harvey and Robinson avenues, the door to hell has been quietly closed and locked.

The key has been hope and healing.

Where there once stood a building full of busy people, there now stand monuments to the lives undone at 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995.

Enter a memory through two massive bronze gates, one marked "9:01" the other "9:03" -- the moments before and after the world changed forever.

Sit under an American elm known as the Survivor Tree, encircled by a protective orchard of fruit and flower trees -- the rescuers. Look into the Reflecting Pool, 400 feet long and less than an inch deep, a mirror made of water.

Gaze out over the Field of Empty Chairs, 168 bronze and stone seats in nine straight rows, each representing a floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. A larger size for each adult, smaller ones for 19 children.

This corner of Oklahoma City is about remembrance, not revenge. It is about emergence into light, not about wandering in darkness. It is about survival of body and soul, not the government-sanctioned death of one man.

It is about the cost of violence.

Timothy McVeigh set all this in motion. His execution 666 miles away, in Terre Haute, Indiana, is now set for June 11.

Afterward, the only acknowledgment in this place that he has died will be the replacement of a small panel that notes his original execution date, May 16, 2001.

The damage he did can be reduced to numbers: 168 deaths, including 19 children. Thirty children orphaned, with 219 losing one parent; 462 people temporarily homeless; 7,000 people without a workplace; more than 300 buildings damaged or destroyed; 12,384 total volunteers and rescuers. And an estimated 387,000 people in Oklahoma City -- more than one-third of its metro population -- who knew someone killed or injured in the bombing.

All of this has become a story in 10 chapters, each one a gallery in the memorial museum.

"Frankly, it would have been easier for this community to just move on and get on with their lives," says Kari Watkins, executive director of the memorial center. "But we've created this museum and this memorial to make a difference. We don't want any other community to have to go through what we went through here."

The 30,000-square-foot museum has been carved from the west end of the former Journal Record building, which was across the street from the Murrah building and still stands, despite heavy damage.

Early in the museum tour, visitors enter a replica of a hearing room in the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, which was located across 5th Street from the Murrah building. A hearing begins, the one that was going on at 9 a.m. on April 19, all of it captured on audio tape. Roy Wikle of Marietta, Oklahoma, wants to bottle and sell his groundwater. Application 95-501.

Then, the explosion. Huge, thunderous, terrifying. The lights go off and come on. The voices on the tape rise in fear and panic. Photos of the dead fill a wall, then fade away.

Doors open onto two more chapters: Confusion and Chaos.

Here the smallest things, cases filled with unclaimed possessions, best convey the magnitude of the destruction. A pile of watches, one singled out: a delicate band of gold links, unscathed. It belonged to Karen Gist Carr, who died in her office in Army Recruiting on the 4th floor.

Bunches of keys. A small brown and white stuffed dog with sad eyes and a cowboy hat. Broken coffee mugs, some of them no doubt full at that early hour. A dozen pairs of glasses.

A white sneaker trimmed in pink that came from the foot of Ashley Megan Eckles. She was 4 when she was killed.

The stories are all here, in pictures and testimonials, on video: survivors, family members, rescuers. People watch and weep.

"The families and survivors asked us not to pretty it up," Watkins says. "You've got to tell people how tough it was. In reality, it's still sheer hell for some people."

The weeks after. The first anniversary. Families talking about how hard it was not to celebrate a holiday or a birthday together. To realize they weren't a couple anymore.

In the Gallery of Honor, walls hold color portraits of all the dead. Eloquent photos, with little keepsakes nearby: a favorite recipe, a plastic toy, a tube of fire engine red lipstick. Faces -- different shapes, different sizes, different colors. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers. The loss suddenly becomes very personal and very real.

There is a special gallery for children. A pathway of pennies leads the way. There are 27,000 here, out of the 45 million collected during the "168 Pennies Campaign" to raise money for the memorial.

Education has become the main focus of the memorial, directed mainly at kids. It is a simple but powerful message: Violence is never acceptable.

"This act could have been stopped. It really could have been stopped, by someone picking up a phone," Watkins says. "That's stuff we want to teach. We want to teach a kid, don't be afraid to do the right thing."

The final chapter is Hope. A large window here overlooks the memorial grounds, and frames the Survivor Tree. Planted before 1920, the elm was located less than 150 feet from Ground Zero. The blast blew off its leaves and embedded glass, metal and plastic in its trunk. And it lives.

People gather at its base to view the memorial grounds, an emotional balm to the raw power of the museum. The memorial was conceived by a young Texas couple, Hans and Torrey Butzer, and chosen from among 624 entries by a committee of survivors, rescuers, family members, civic leaders and designers.

The committee wrote the memorial mission statement: "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, peace, hope and serenity."

The empty chairs sit on the footprint of the Murrah Building. The field is surrounded by a pathway made from granite salvaged from the building. At night, the glass base of each chair glows with gentle light, a spark of life.

"It's kind of a two-sided coin," Torrey Butzer says. "You see the effect of the violence -- on the other hand, you see the good things that came out of that tragic day. So that people leave with some sense of hope and peace."

The museum has been open for less than three months. By this weekend, 100,000 people will have visited.

In the elevator ride down from the galleries, people shake their heads in disbelief. The story is unbelievable. The motive is unimaginable.

Within the museum, McVeigh is mentioned three times: the crime, the investigation, and the Wall of Justice. These exhibits are always off to one side, until the wall, which details the outcome of the trial. "GUILTY" screams the headline in that day's Rocky Mountain News, which is posted there.

The citizens who created the museum debated about McVeigh. Did his picture belong in the museum? Should it be in black and white or color?

It is there, both ways. Because it's important to put a face on terrorism, the memorial committee believes.

"I want a kid to see that McVeigh looked like a normal, all-American boy," Watkins says. "He had as normal a life as people can have, but something in his heart had to be changed, to be fixed. He doesn't look like a bad guy. But he was a very twisted individual who needed some help, and he didn't get it."

He looked like any of us. His victims were all of us. And it was a day like any other.

The proof has been preserved in this memorial. Front pages from the papers. Photos and sounds of people getting ready for work. Employees arriving at the Social Security office, the Federal Credit Union. Children being dropped off at day care.

And on one small plaque, the weather report for Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.

"Clear and cool in the morning, temperatures in the 60s. Chance of showers and thunderstorms later in the day.

"Turning colder."

Contact Lisa Levitt Ryckman at (303) 892-2736 or ryckmanl@RockyMountainNews.com.

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