The Date? April 19, 1995 -- The Time? 9:02 a.m.

On the above date and time, Kyle (my husband) and I (Linda) were living in Ponca City, OK where my husband was working at the Conoco Plant as an Instrument Technician. It was a day that was cloudy and cool enough for at least a sweater. I was watching television, just being lazy. I changed channels and there was a building or what was left of a building. I remember thinking to myself "Oh no...they must be fighting again in Beirut". And then to my horror, I discovered it was a building in Oklahoma City, OK. I stood up and just stared at the television....I didn't know what to do and what was going on.

After what seemed like an eternity, I managed to get some of my wits back and picked up the phone to call my husband. I was thinking that if terrorists had come and done this horrible thing, then the petroleum plants would surely be on their agenda also. Kyle answered the phone and I could barely speak. I told him that a building in Oklahoma City had been blown up. Since he knows that I sometimes blow things out of proportion, he calmly asked how big the building was. I started trying to count the floors and all I could count was 4....not realizing at that time the building was a 9 story building if I recall correctly. Kyle, not realizing how bad this was, asked how bad was it damaged. I told him "you don't understand. The whole front of the building is gone....the building is now horseshoe shaped".

We hung up and I finally sat down on the couch and didn't realize that forever and always, my life had been changed at that moment. We didn't know anyone in that building because our home state is Texas but over the next couple of weeks, we would find ourselves with an extended family of victims and the people in the whole state of Oklahoma.

I don't have to tell any of you the details because you saw it all on television. I still get emotional about this day because of so many reasons. The innocent children. The innocent adults. The innocent people like me who was terrified that whole day that there would be more bombings. I was terrified I would lose my husband in a bombing at the plant he was working in. For weeks, I was uncomfortable even going to Wal-Mart or the grocery store or to a restaurant because those could be targeted places.

Timothy McVeigh will never know the lives he disrupted. We will never know if one of those children might have grown up to be President or found a cure for a terrible disease. We will never know about the unborn children of the pregnant women who died in that building. We will just never know.

Please always remember April 19, 1995. Let it live in your hearts and in your souls so that the people who lost their lives there and the families who were forever changed and the people disrupted, like us, will live on. Please do me the honor of signing my guestbook.

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Email: lin@viptx.net