I was listening to the radio today when it asked, "What were you doing 11 years ago today?" I remember...do you?
Eleven years ago I was 8 months pregnant, and spent the day at home with my two toddlers...actually, with one toddler and a baby (Nick was 3, Lindsay was 16 months old). We spent the day as we usually did, watching Nick Jr. I rarely changed the channel in those days, I was tired and willing to let Nick watch his stuff all day. Ben came home from work around 5, and asked, "Why aren't you watching the news?" This, of course, was before we had cell phones, etc, and I hadn't talked to him all day....I hadn't talked to any adults. I was clueless. Ben turned the channel to news, and I couldn't believe my eyes. I had no idea....this is when I decided that children's programming really should run a scrolly thing at the bottom for us poor house-bound moms, something I still don't think they do.
What am I talking about, some of you may be asking? Today is the 11th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, still one of the most horrible things that's happened in my lifetime, in my opinion. 9/11 was horrible, don't get me wrong, I cried for a solid month afterwards...but at least it was strangers who did that. Oklahoma City happened because of one of our own...to me that makes it that much more horrible.
The next day I, along with millions of other people, was horrified to see this picture in my paper.
This beautiful child, Baylee Almon, died because of one idiot...this girl who was close to the age of my own daughter. This innocent baby, who had just turned a year old.
But I did get something good out of the death of this beautiful little girl.
Remember, I was 8 months pregnant. With a baby girl. We still hadn't picked out a name. We decided to name our baby Baylee, to honor this poor child who died in this awful event. So, my daughter has a beautiful, special name, one I never would have thought of if not for this awful event. To me, it's made her, our Baylee, into a very special person, a girl with a special name, with a special namesake. Here's our Baylee today...she'll be 11 at the end of May.
Always remember.
Great coverage here.
An absolutely fabulous tribute can be found here.
Technorati tags:Oklahoma City Bombing, Baylee Almon, April 19, 1995
***UPDATE***
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