Encouragement

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I saw some things on TV about the rescuers at the twin towers and it took me back to the Oklahoma City bombing. I understand how a trauma like that lives in you forever.

I arrived at the Murrah building only having heard about it on the radio. I had no idea it would be the horrific experience it turned out to be. When I got to the site, I looked up at that horrible gaping building and evil fell upon me. It consumed me and crushed my chest like a stone. The air was thick with it and the stench was overwhelming. The sun was suddenly dark and the spring day instantly turned frigid.

As I stood in front of the building, they announced that another bomb had been found and we were to immediately evacuate. As we rushed the injured out of the area, we ran with our backs arched imagining bricks hitting us from behind. Minutes later when the bomb was found to be harmless and we re-entered the area people were already surrounding us with love.

As we ran back into the area, people put scrubs on us and touched our hands saying they were praying for us. As they were stuffing our pockets with bottles of water and clothing us with scrubs, someone wheeled into the area in a pickup truck loaded with barbeque sandwiches. They jumped out of the truck and began to cram sandwiches into our pockets. It was still morning and no one could eat, but the love of that act covered us with armor as we went back into the terror of that bloody battle between good and evil.

They called us rescuers, but that is misleading. In spite of the intensive efforts of many people, there was only one woman who was rescued from the building after the initial evacuation. I got an IV for her while she lay trapped under the rubble of the parking garage. A surgeon who is my neighbor amputated her trapped leg as the building creaked and blood from bodies above dripped on him.

After the woman was taken from the building, we were given big brooms and blankets. We were told to sweep the streets and lay out the blankets for survivors. As we swept the street, we became terrified that we were sweeping up body parts and after a while it was apparent that no one was ever coming to lay on the blankets so we wandered the streets trying to find a way out.

The building was in an urban area with a high homeless and addict population. Banks with cash and buildings with expensive art were blown apart, but no one was taking anything. Everyone was just wandering aimlessly.

Thousands of people came to circle the bomb site with love and prayer. As the prayers went up and love surrounded us all, the sun came out and the stench of evil was replaced with the smell of life. The air was as thick with love as it had previously been with hate and evil was subdued.

Eventually I was able to come home, but still I couldn't stop. I gathered food for the church where the second wave of rescuers were being fed by women cooking. I went to another church where relatives and survivors were taken for counseling. The first person I saw was a young girl who offered me a donut.

Through it all, I was panicked by my own helplessness. There was nothing anyone could do except offer love. Interestingly much of that love was offered in the form of food and women everywhere seemed to have immediately begun to cook. Food was the currency of love.

Sometime very late that night, I finally got home, but I could not turn off the television or sleep without nightmares until a month later when the image of the building was finally off the television screen.

For me and many of the Murrah rescuers, much of the terror of April 19 returned on Sept. 11. And it was truly terrifying, but because it was a thousand miles away it was not the same. Someone said the difference between being at the Murrah bombing and seeing it on TV was like the difference between seeing a postcard of the Grand Canyon and standing at the canyon rim. Seeing the bombing of the twin towers on television was horrific for us all, but it must have been even more terrifying for those who were there.

Even now, the evil of the Murrah bombing returns to my consciousness as I‘m sure it does for 9-11 survivors and rescuers. I hold onto the one thing I have come to know as strength. On April 19, 1995 for a short time in the center of America, love triumphed and evil was defeated. I saw the same love triumphant in New York City on 9-11.

It should be a lesson the terrorists. They may cause fear for a while with their evil deeds, but Americans are strong with love and that is what it takes to for good to defeat evil.

smile

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