It's an iconic photo. Part of America's history. An image of a tragedy in my country. One lone portrayal capable of humanizing an epic slaughter in a city I know and love. Since that day in 1995 we have, unfortunately, faced even greater destruction of American lives in this country - Washington DC; Shanksville, PA; New York City.
As a historian I am accustomed to studying death and tragedy. Wars and rebellions. Massacres and individual murders. My hobby honors those who fought and died in the US Civil War. I have visited many of the monuments and cemeteries in this nation which honor and remember those who died: large national graveyards, small roadside memorials, memorials that strive to teach and remember and explain, and those which simply are. Each one is a poignant reminder of those whose lives were cut short by war, by murder, by nature.
I visit them and I try to maintain a professional cool. I take photos. I make notes of architectural styles, the poems and other written words and how they are used to direct our thoughts a certain way. I note whose names are missing (the hijackers of Flight 93 are not mentioned by name anywhere in the memorial, even the transcripts of the cockpit voice recorder simply list them as "male voice in Arabic" or "hijacker").
But the historian always loses out to the person. I become a mother who looks at row upon row of tombstones or tiny chairs or endless names and thinks of the devastation my only son's death would wreak on my life. I read the mementos, the letters, the testimonies, I see the little handmade items brimming with love and longing and my heart nearly breaks for the sorrow of the mourners.
George Santayana said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Albert Einstein is (improperly) credited with saying that the definition of doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. I cross this great nation of ours and see these memorials to insanity and forgetfulness (or read the paper or watch the news) and I despair. Are we doomed to forever be ruled by and ruined by a few petty individuals who have no regard for life and love and hope and humanity?
But I remember what Mahatma Gandhi said. "Remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it: always." And Robert F. Kennedy gives me hope with his reminder that "It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope."
So perhaps these photographs and monuments and memorials are here to remind of what we have lost, but also to remind up that in the end evil loses, and that in each tragedy or war or massacre there are also stories of heroism and bravery and goodness and love.
Today as I remember the horror and fear that was perpetrated on 168 people in Oklahoma City - and their families and friends, their city, their state, their nation - I will also remind myself that there were brave men and women who leaped to assist, who rendered aid, who comforted the terrified and grieving, and who immediately got to work to find and punish those responsible for this evil. And I will take comfort and hope.
History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats. - B.C. Forbes
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