Every City Has a Story...

I love the opportunity to visit any new city because they all have a story to tell.  When Scott's work schedule provided a lot of time to site see in Oklahoma City and New Orleans, we were able to find Grandmas willing to watch the boys and I was able to join him on his trip.

I remember very distinctly the day April 19, 1995, of the Oklahoma City bombing.  I was out tracting with Sister Rojas in the Palmyra area and we tracted into one of the member's homes.  She told us about the tradgedy, although it was hard to really grasp, especially as a missionary as we had so little contact with the news and current events.  I remember President Monson mentioning the memorial at the bombing site in a General Conference address in April of 2001.  Some of his address included, "Following the regional conference in Oklahoma City, I was driven to the entrance of a beautiful and symbolic memorial which graces the area where the Murrah building once stood. It was a dreary, rainy day, which tended to underscore the pain and suffering which had occurred there. The memorial features a 400-foot reflecting pool. On one side of the pool are 168 empty glass and granite chairs in honor of each of the people killed. These are placed, as far as can be determined, where the fallen bodies were found.

On the opposite side of the pool there stands, on a gentle rise of ground, a mature American elm tree—the only nearby tree to survive the destruction. It is appropriately and affectionately named “The Survivor Tree.” In regal splendor it honors those who survived the horrific blast.

My host directed my attention to the inscription above the gate of the memorial:

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, strength, peace, hope and serenity.

He then, with tears in his eyes and with a faltering voice, declared, “This community, and all the churches and citizens in it, have been galvanized together. In our grief we have become strong. In our spirit we have become united.”

When Scott and I went to visit the Memorial, it was evening and all of the chairs were lit up.  There were smaller chairs for those representing the children, which there many of, who were killed.  As soon as you walked in through the gate, a feeling immediately rushed over you and you felt like you were on sacred ground.  You only felt comfortable communicating in a whisper.  The chairs lined both sides of the reflecting pool and the light from the chairs was reflected in the pool.

There were plaques placed around the memorial providing more information.  One story I found especially touching was about a father that met his 23 year old daughter every Wednesday for lunch.  She worked at City Building and they would meet at the restaurant across the street.  His daughter was killed in the bombing and he was completely devastated, of course.  At first, he wanted those responsible for the bombing to be put to death.  He was so overcome with grief and anguish, his life was miserable.  He then decided he wanted to meet the father of Timothy McVeigh, one of those responsible for the bombing.  He has since started to try and prevent the death penalty from being implemented for the bombers and he stays in touch with Timothy McVeigh's father.  I admire that someone who has suffered such a devastating and senseless loss can come to a place of such forgiveness.

The memorial touched me much more deeply than I ever would have expected.  It still makes me emotional to think about.  I only wished we would have had more time.  There is a museum there also which we didn't get in early enough to see.  Next time...

Scott and I at the Oklahoma City Arts Festival

After such a fun visit to New Orleans in January, I was excited to be able to get back again with Scott.  The first thing I wanted to be able to do was take a cemetery tour.  It was a beautiful sunny day, a perfect day to walk around the city and learn more about it's history.  The high water table there does not allow them to bury underground, so the bodies are placed in these tombs and sealed.  With the intense heat there, within a year all that remains are a few bone fragments.  A family purchases a tomb and each of the family members can be buried in the tomb.  The required waiting period is one year and one day before the tomb can be opened again for the next person to be buried.  When you look at the tombs, you can see long lists of names of all of the people who have been buried there.

A long list of family members who
died from yellow fever, many of
them children.

People will bring flowers and even
trinkets and food for their
loved ones.

Immigrants would want to be buried
in soil from their homeland, so they
would fill the area with soil from their
native country.

We were also able to take a tour of Oak Alley Plantation.  I kept thinking, "This house looks so familiar!" and finally figured out it was on the cover a book I had just finished reading, "A Separate Country."

Three hundred year old oak trees line the entrance.

The tour guide was excellent!  If the walls of this home could
talk... I loved hearing all of the history-  the sad, exciting, and true.

I felt like I should be wearing a hoop skirt and bonnet and
carrying a parasol to be walking down the walkway.

The view of the home from the Mississippi.
What a grand entrance with those symmetrical oak trees.