As lawyers in the Oklahoma City case select a jury, many victims’ families are still wrestling with the tragedy. We are the real people who prosecutors are fighting for. Unlike some, I do not believe the conspiracy theories surrounding this case. Yes, other accomplices may be at large. But I think Tim McVeigh will be found guilty, and that he will pay with the death penalty.
I still live with what happened that terrible morning. On April 19,1995, I dropped Baylee off at the second-floor day-care center around 7:80 a.m. and went on to work. (I was a single mother.) When the bomb exploded at 9:02, I heard it and felt it at my desk five miles away. Then someone turned on the TV. and I recognized what was left of the Murrah building. My heart sank. I arrived at the building around 9:20. The area was already roped off, and rescuers and bleeding people were everywhere. “What about the babies in the day-care center? What about the children?” I yelled.
Soon I ran into my parents and sister. They were looking for Baylee, too. We heard that some children had been taken to St. Anthony’s Hospital, where Baylee was born. Officials there sent us to Children’s Hospital. Children’s sent us back to St. Anthony’s, where they said a baby remained unidentified. At St. Anthony’s I quickly found Baylee’s pediatric nurse. “Is Baylee here?” I asked. No, she said; all the surviving children had been claimed. But we heard that a baby remained unidentified? “Oh, my God,” cried the nurse. “Let me get Dr. Beavers.” (Up to that point I had assumed the unidentified baby was alive.) Dr. Beavers was Baylee’s pediatrician. As I sat in the waiting room with my family he rounded the corner. A minister was with him. The unidentified child was Baylee, he said, and she was dead.
We all went down to the hospital’s morgue to identify her. As we approached the door I couldn’t go in. Daddy went alone. I remember feeling as if the world were passing by. The next morning I asked for the newspaper. My parents had hidden it. When I finally saw a copy, I knew why. There was the picture of the firefighter. “That’s Baylee!” I said. Then the swarm started. I was afraid to step in front of my door for fear that someone would take my picture. When the doorbell rang, I froze. One reporter brought Chris Fields, the firefighter in the photo. over to meet me. I told him how glad I was that the rescuers got Baylee out so quickly, and I thanked him for holding her so gently.
Baylee was supposed to be buried on Saturday, April 22. But when Daddy went down to the medical examiner’s office, they had misplaced her body. They finally found her, and Baylee was buried on Monday. I had to go out and buy her a burial outfit. That was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
Meanwhile, the photo started bothering some of the other parents who lost children. They began to criticize me in the media for getting too much attention while their children were ignored. I tried to tell them that I didn’t want the publicity. But they didn’t listen. When the governor suggested that a statue of Chris and Baylee be a memorial, the criticism increased. No one realized that such a memorial would have made my nightmare even worse. Criticism from other victims hurt, but commercialization of the photo was worse. Freelance photographers sold the photo rights, and the picture began showing up on T shirts, lapel pins and even telephone cards. In July of 19951 ran across one man raffling off 18-inch statues of Chris and Baylee. “That’s my daughter!” I said angrily. What was his response? He told me to buy a ticket so I could win one. The statues were the last straw. Chris and I filed suit to try to control the commercial use of the photo. A judge has ruled against us, saying I was the only person who could recognize Baylee in the picture. We have appealed.
I’m patching my life together. Therapy has helped a lot. Though I have yet to return to work, last weekend I married Stan Kok, a senior airman at Tinker Air Force Base outside Oklahoma City. I really want to have more children. Before I met Stan, I asked 30 doctors about artificial insemination. They all declined-most said they didn’t think I was ready. Stan and I think we’re ready now. Three kids sounds about right to us. Things have slowly improved during the last two years, but I miss being a mother. I miss being Baylee’s mother.
