Claire's visit to the Oklahoma National Memorial

Everything so far is wonderful. I guess it's sort of given me a taste of life next year. Except for the fact that I got really lucky and ended up in a family similar to mine. Except for the number of people... Did I mention how much I love food? Because I do. And that's why being here is so great. Thanksgiving food was amazing, my host father's making faux-chinese tonight, and I made apple compote. Plus, I get to have pink lemonade again (Oh yeah) and Doritos. Yes, I'm sure Doritos are sold in France, but it's just not as common...

So, last week, my host mother told me what today's visit would be about: the visit of the Memorial for the April 1995 bombing. My host sister mentioned that she nearly cried at the end of the Memorial. She's not a crier. I am. I cried a whole bunch. I do believe it would be reasonable to say that this has scarred me for a very long time to come. The very concept that people in this world would blow buildings up like that because they're not satisified with the way things are is crazy, scary, and confusing. But the fact that they believe they are right is just... unbelievable. I couldn't even talk during the visit. I just cried and had a very hard time breathing. I have 3 siblings, and two happily married parents. Now, my Dad has experiences fires before since the factory he once worked out caught fire. To this day, no one really knows what happened. And my siblings have had an explosion in their school. Thank the lord, no one was there at the time, but our house just shook, and we live about 15min from there. Now, as I was walking the tears did stop, and I just thought that would be it, no more tears, what could be more horrible than what I had just seen? The wall of honor. I can't say it was a bad idea, but I hated it. They displayed pictures of children and adults, but I personally feel even more sympathy for children. Sure, they're humans like others, but they haven't lived yet. They were in a Day Care center, which must mean they were under the age of 6. They didn't even have a license yet. They hadn't experienced their first love. All they knew was that they had parents and a life. The grown ups were trying to save the children and had - for the most part - already experienced a lot of things: college, love, their first car, their first paycheck, everything.

As I walked through the Memorial, I began to think "This man deserves to die and go to hell". But then I realised: no, that was too easy. This would be one of those situations when I don't support the death penalty. The man (well, more like a mere living creature, if you ask me) should have been locked up in a tiny cell, and should have had to live the rest of his life rotting with what he'd done.

I did get my voice back as we reached the gift shop, though, and I felt a little bit more free, because all the emotion was finally leaving me. For the most part, at least. I can't say that wasn't a tough experience, if my reading about it hurt me that much, I don't want to imagine what it must have been like for the families involved in this event.

Coming home to a loving family definitely felt great, and laughing my worries away was the best. I actually feel like I'll be able to sleep tonight. Let's not watch scary movies right now...

 

 Claire