"Every day, every minute is so precious"

Ten years ago this spring, Michelle Reeder and her mother, Carolyn A. Kreymborg, attended a flower show.  They shared a fondness for azaleas. Cynthia Brown, a newlywed, was settling into her position as a special agent with the Secret Service.  Blake Ryan Kennedy, a toddler, was expanding his vocabulary.  Scott Williams was waiting for his wife to give birth to their first child.

We remember Michelle, Carolyn, Cynthia, Blake, and Scott this week, as they were among the 168 lives that were lost on April 19, 1995 when the Murrah Federal building was destroyed.  The Oklahoma City bombing remains the worst incidence of domestic terrorism undertaken on American soil.   April 17-24 has been named the National Week of Hope, and several events have been planned in Oklahoma to memorialize those lost and spread a message of caring and tolerance.

The Oklahoma City National Memorial website details these events, and in partnership with The Daily Oklahoman features portraits of each of the victims.  Family members and other loved ones are quoted, describing their loss and sharing memories.  Nineteen children were among those killed, and one mother, remembering her two sons, said, “You can never hug and kiss your child too many times.”

In spite of subsequent controversies, trials, and politics, what matters most at times of remembrance are those who still mourn.  Victims’ families and survivors are testaments to the changeable and unpredictable character of life.  We grieve for them, and with them, as we hold our own loved ones near, reminded that “every day, every minute, is so precious.”   Even if we knew no one in Oklahoma, we can mark the day with the embrace of a close friend, a phone call to a relative at a distance, or a child’s hug.