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By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged

OKLAHOMA CITY — The last week or two, I started feeling stressed. Agitated even.

For no apparent reason.

Then it hit me: The anniversary.

Saturday marks 30 years since the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history claimed 168 lives and wounded hundreds.

I didn’t lose a loved one. I suffered no physical injuries. But I — like the rest of my devastated community — witnessed the attack on the Heartland up close. 

I didn’t realize until years later how deeply the bombing — and the weeks, months and even years spent reporting on it — touched me. I pretended that I, as a hard-nosed newspaperman, was immune from such a tragedy changing me.

I was wrong.

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This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.

Photo provided by Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum