Visiting the Oklahoma City Memorial was a very somber experience. Until you walk through this memorial, and see the symbolism built in, you truly will not understand the impact of the lives lost on April 19, 1995 9:02am, when the Murrah building was blown up in a terrorist attack.
At each end of the reflecting pool is a gate, one depicting the time of 9:01 representing normalcy, and the other depicting a time of 9:03, starting the recovery and healing process. The reflecting pool sits on what was NW Fifth Street, the street in front of the Murray Building.
The Field of Empty chairs sit on the lawn where the Murray Building once stood. There are 168 chairs, one for each person that was killed in the attack. It was incredibly sad to see the 19 smaller chairs, standing for the children lost. The chairs are arranged in 9 rows, one for each floor in the Murray Building. Each person's chair is situated in the row corresponding to the floor of the building they were on when the attack occurred. On each chair is a glass panel, etched with the name of the person that was killed. Each night the chairs are lit up, shining the names of all the victims through the glass.
The Survivor Tree lived through the violence of that day, and continues to thrive today. The original fence that was put up to protect the site of the explosion still stands. Even today, people continue to leave tokens of remembrance of the victims.
