And the Birds Still Sang...April 19,1995

Birds cheerfully whistling and chirping and singing in my backyard.

Strangely, this is what I remember most about those moments before our lives and our hearts were changed 20 years ago. The sun was shining, the grass was green, there was a noisy little posse of kids around my breakfast table and new life kicking happily inside me...and the birds were singing.

And...then they weren't. Actually, they might have been but I didn't hear them. We all heard and felt the explosion and went outside to look at the sky. There was smoke rising from the area of downtown Oklahoma City. Perhaps the birds were still singing in those moments...perhaps not.

In horror, we learned what the explosion meant. In disbelief, we listened as the death toll rose. In mind-numbing shock, we saw the pictures that will never leave our consciousness. 

And the birds still sang...