BAILEY’S TREE
The days drug on that week
Would Friday ever come?
I would spend the night with her
When the school week was done.
Each day at school we talked about all the fun we would share
All the memories we would make,
What we would do on a dare.
Friday finally came
The day was finally here
It was the middle of April
I remember that quite clear
When her dad arrived at school that day my friend asked, “Well?”
Her dad responded, “You know how it is. This week is always hell. “
I looked at my friend puzzled.
What on earth was she hiding?
But I saw the tears welling in her eyes and in me she began confiding.
She said, “I had a sister once one I never knew. I have only heard stories of her because pictures are very few. “
She said,” Have you ever heard the name Timothy McVeigh?
Did anyone ever tell you about the Murrah Building being blown away?”
My eyes widened as I asked, “What does that have to do with you? How did he hurt your sister? What exactly did he do?”
And so my friend continued
Her story that brought my pity
She told me all about
The bombing in Oklahoma City
She told me where her mother worked
And how it was ten blocks away
But the Murrah Building had childcare, a place for her baby to stay.
She said her mother told of how her own building shook
How they thought it was thought it was thunder and ran to the window for a look.
The skies outside were clear
There wasn’t a cloud in sight
But when a puff of smoke rose through the air
They knew something wasn’t right.
Her mother wasn’t worried yet
Construction was nothing new
But as she looked out at the sky
Black smoke covered the blue.
A co-worker came and told her
Their own building was being cleared
A bombing had just occurred
It was terrorists they feared.
Her mother ran ten blocks
To find her little one
But as she arrived at the mangled mess
All hope she had was gone.
Her mother waited there and prayed
She asked anyone who cared
She explained her daughter was inside
She told them she would be scared.
Then out of the rubble and debris
A hero stood so bold
A firefighter cradling her baby girl
Whose story would never unfold.
The worst domestic attack they said
168 had died
But none of those facts mattered to her
Those weren’t the tears she cried.
An amateur photo was taken
Baylee was memorialized
The firefighter and the baby
Had won a Pulitzer Prize.
But her mother wanted more
Her daughter was not that day
How could she let America know
The day before was Baylee’s birthday?
Her precious girl was so much more
A baby learning to walk
A smile that could light up the room
A child learning to talk.
As we pulled into the driveway
Her father said to me,
“You see Taryn every year we won’t forget Baylee.”
That night I was included
In something more than me
I helped the family packaged the seeds
That soon became Baylee’s tree.