Sunday, April 19th 2020, 7:27 pm
Caye Allen recalled the moments before she became a widow on April 19, 1995.
Since her car was being worked on that day, Allen and her husband, Ted, rode to downtown Oklahoma City together for work. Their jobs were just blocks apart.
"I dropped him off and got to work,” Allen said. “I had just gotten up to my floor, put my bag up and the bomb went off."
Had Allen been near the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building three minutes earlier, she wouldn't be alive.
"It was like we were in another country,” Allen said. “I had never seen anything like it."
Ted, an urban planner for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, was among the 168 people killed.
Allen was left to care for their six children.
Allen said she's proud of how they've overcome such heartache and pain together.
All six Allen children have graduated college and some have children of their own.
She said she hopes people don’t forget all the lives lost.
"In some ways, it seems like it was yesterday,” Allen said. “And the way that I realize it wasn't yesterday is looking at Austin."
The youngest, Austin, who was four when he lost his father, will soon be a father himself.
"It's something I really look forward to,” Austin said. “It's been a dream of mine to have somebody call me ‘Dad,’ something I wasn't able to do."
Austin and his fiancé, Marissa McGinley, will find out the child's gender on April 20.
"I just know that he will be the best father," McGinley said.
It's been hard for Austin growing up without his father, but he'll make sure their children know about their "gentle giant" of a grandfather.
"The compassion and caring for people," Austin said. "That's a trait that will be emphasized and passed down to my future child. Our future child."
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