Melva Noakes is back lending care to those in need, but it took her five years to recover from the pain of April 19, 1995.
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Today, Noakes is the director of Comfort Living Services, which provides home services and training designed to help developmentally disabled children and adults to live independently.
"I love what I'm doing; it's very rewarding," Noakes said during a telephone interview. "I can't change the past. All we can do is make the future a little better."
Until that tragic day, Noakes' life whirled happily between the two day-care centers she owned and operated.
One was in Choctaw and the other was America's Kids Child Development Center, the day care housed inside the Murrah Building.
"My life revolved around children," she said. "Kids were my whole life."
A terrorist act killed 15 children and three adult caregivers and injured six other children inside Noakes' day-care center on the second floor.
"The thing that still seems like yesterday was seeing the building, without any front on it, and thinking, 'Where's my kids?'" said Noakes, who was in the YMCA when the bomb went off.
Authorities stationed Noakes early on at the command post, intending to have her care for any rescued children and reunite them with their parents. That didn't happen.
Then, a few hours later, she was asked to go to the morgue to make identifications. "From that point on, it just got worse."
Funerals and hospital visits were followed by insurance problems, workers' compensation matters and the closing of her day-care business.
"It's an honor to care for people's children," Noakes said. "But after that, I couldn't do it anymore."
It took about five years for the numbness from the tragedy to subside, she said.
Her husband, Warren, is now retired, and the couple celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary with a special trip at the end of March.
They also are proud grandparents of a little boy, 2, and a little girl who celebrated her first birthday in December.
"Life means more to me now -- since the bombing. I know life is so precious, so precious," she said. "Now, when I strap my grandbaby into a car seat, I pray, 'Lord, just let me get there safe.'"
A continuing delight is the reunions she occasionally has with the six children who survived the blast.
"They're all just beautiful children to this day," she said "I know they're going to make a difference in this state when they grow up. They're fighters."
