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In Tribute
by Carolyn Dekat
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Once again Oklahoma focuses on the bombing of the Murrah Building, a unique and jolting tragedy that shook the foundation of so many lives and futures that the scope is beyond comprehension. For the past 168 days, faces have been featured on local newscasts in tribute to lives that were tragically cut short. Story upon story is told or re-told of the events surrounding. Help is still being extended to the survivors and the families of victims. The college fund set up for the children who lost parents as a result of this attack will take care of college tuition until the youngest of the children is 21. The City seems to be holding a collective breath, praying for a clear and safe day on which to hold the Memorial dedication.
Strangely, I found myself unable to generate whole-hearted support of the National Memorial on the site of the Murrah Building. Why? I ask myself. I heard that blast from my home, not having the faintest idea at the time what it was. I was glued to the television in horror, unable to tear myself away and get back to a routine that suddenly seemed very, very small. I had my sleepless nights tormented by a faint reflection of the shock that others lived with first hand. Compelled to travel to the site, I trembled in the shadow of the broken concrete, ripped and hanging like paper next to bars of steel that dangled like string over ragged edges. My eye caught a desk, perched to fall several stories with the next wind gust, and I could not stop my mind from wondering who sat there last, before the floor fell away and the desk tilted to it's precarious position, and was swept clean of folders, papers, paper clips, memos, family pictures. As we drove home, a sign on a building some five or six blocks away advertising "SECURITY SYSTEMS" dangled from its few remaining bolts in mockery. In the following days, months, and years, I watched the implosion of the remainder of the building, listened to the trials, took visiting relatives to gaze at the fence full of letters, T-shirts, stuffed animals, and poems. So why is it so hard to share in the enthusiasm for the Memorial?
For me, March of 1995 went out like a lion in many ways. We received news that the house we were renting was going to be put on the market. It had happened twice before, and there were no nibbles. But this time the owners were "serious" about selling. Not only did I have to keep the house show ready with a seven- and two-year-old; our house hunting was yielding nothing. I hated the up-in-the-air feeling. It made me grumpy. However, I was complaining about absolutely nothing. April demonstrated that amply.
First, news came that a friend of mine was on the edge of death. I was with her when she met her husband, not so long ago it seemed. She was five years younger than me and stricken with lupus that had attacked her intestinal tract. The doctors already told her husband to begin preparing for the probability of being a single father to their two young daughters.
Within a couple days, I learned that a respected member of our religious community had hung himself in his garage before his doctors could adjust his depression medication properly.
Then there was the family two houses down on our little dead end street. Carmen, the daughter, was the same age as our oldest son--seven--so they were often together, riding the two-wheelers they had just mastered, or playing Nintendo. My mind carries a vivid snapshot of Carmen riding her fathers shoulders, head tilted back in laughter, her long dark hair streaming behind her in the strong Oklahoma wind. Carmen's dad also spent time helping her older brother rebuild a car for his upcoming venture into the world of driving. When her mom was not helping her husband with the remodeling he was doing on the house, she was extending hospitality to extended family members who seemed to come and go in an endless stream. Though they were a quiet family, they smiled often. It was a joy to watch them because the family unit was clearly important to all of them.
It was the first Sunday in April when Carmen showed up at our door to play as she often did. Only this time she was a little early. My husband met her at the door; we had just gotten home from church. He explained that Abe still had to change his clothes and clean his room before he could play. Carmen's response was "That's okay. I'm still a little sad anyway. My Dad died yesterday."
We were rooted to the spot. It came tumbling from her as matter-of-factly as a weather report. We couldn't believe what we were hearing.
Somewhere on a highway in Arizona Carmen's dad had pulled off the road to check under the hood of the pickup truck he was driving. The truck was hit from behind by a drunk driver with such force that both the truck and the car drove over him.
The chain of events thereafter was heart-wrenching for the family. We went to the funeral; then the family made the trip to Mexico to bury him where his parents were buried. His wife had great difficulty getting her son back into the United States because the birth certificate she had did not have a raised seal. After they worked through that and arrived home, there was the task of rebuilding a life without a critical piece of the family. Mountains of paperwork, money tied up in red tape, and the unfinished improvements to the house were just a few of the things they dealt with in the midst of shock and grief. Then as things settled, the widow had to go to Arizona for the trial of the man who killed her husband.
On April 19, 1995, Carmen's mother was supposed to be picked up by a friend as soon as the children left for school. The plan was to get to the Social Security Office to take care of the last of the paperwork before the line had a chance to get long. She waited and waited and waited, but her ride never showed up. Finally her friend called and said she'd decided it was better if they had an appointment, and she had scheduled one for 1:30 that afternoon.
Only there was no Social Security Office by 1:30 that afternoon. Carmen's mother had escaped death with a narrowness that covered my flesh with new chills.
However, Carmen and her brother do not have a scholarship fund set up to assure their education. Their father's face is not flashed across a TV screen as one lost, loved and dearly remembered. Yet he, too, was in the wrong place at the wrong time, the same as the Murrah Building victims were. Was any one life lost more precious than another? I can't remember that lost and alone look in Carmen's eyes and believe that to be true.
My friend survived her lupus, but lives on a precarious edge. Two years ago she spent over 200 days out of the year in the hospital. Her husband changed jobs to get better insurance coverage for her, then had to move the family closer to where she could get care, which resulted in a 45-minute commute one way for him. He is worthy of a tribute for his loving devotion to his family. For all the effort that goes into caring for her, they cherish each day they have together. She lives her life more fully than many people I know, simply because she is so aware of how short her time may possibly be.
I have come to understand that the chain of events in my life that are connected to this tragedy in Oklahoma City do not allow me to focus on only 168 lives that were tragically lost. My tribute must go to all lives that have ended too soon. In honor of every life, I try to make the most of the days I have with those who are dear to me. I hug them tighter, more often. I reach out more readily to the grieving, knowing that every lost life is a terrible thing.
Oh, and the house we were renting did sell in May of 1995. To Baylee Almon's mother. Later in the fall, I stopped in to visit Carmen's mother who told me that she had toured the room in the Almon's house that had once been my office. The shelves that lined an entire long wall were full of things that had been sent from all over the world, a human outpouring of comfort generated by the picture of Baylee in the firefighter's arms. But I like to think that the greatest comfort came from sharing her grief with someone who understood it first hand, just two doors down.
© 1999 Carolyn Dekat
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