I have to pass the Murrah Bombing Memorial every working day, and so I see the Fence every day and am reminded every day of what happened to me, to my friends, and to friends of friends there. Every one I know was either in the Bomb or knew someone who was in the Bomb – Oklahoma is just that connected.
When I passed today, there were people out there with library carts and bins, taking things off the Fence.
I know some of the ribbons were tattered by the weather and the little T-shirts were sunfaded, and some of the teddy bears and other plushies had gotten moldy – but these were mementoes, offerings, and propitiations to that day, that event. They serve as a marker to those who stroll the Fence and pause to finger a dilapidated toy or sunkissed ribbon and remember the lives and the love that came pouring out that day. America was at its finest that day and in the days that followed.
Removing these memorial tokens is like desecrating an altar.
Those women probably thought they were doing something nice, sprucing the memorial up for the ceremony on the 19th. But what they were doing was taking away pieces of our hearts.
