My younger sister was born on April 17, 1995. Two days later, Timothy McVeigh detonated a homemade truck bomb in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.

Two significant events happened: One event added a new member to my family. Another event took loved ones away from many.

I remember the bombing. I don’t remember all the bustling activity and excitement in the house as my parents brought my sister home. All I really remember are the images on the television.

That’s the weight of a tragedy so massive, it eclipses even the most personal joy. Even in the mind of a young child.

And yet, 30 years after bombing, the ideology that fueled that act of domestic terrorism hasn’t been stamped out. It’s been fed. Fed by the very government it claimed to despise.

What should’ve been a national reckoning became a fleeting memory. And the hate kept growing.

The very institutions that were attacked are bending over backward. They are trying to appease the people who still carry that torch.

We can’t afford to forget what happened.

We can’t afford to forget why it happened.

We have to be honest about what it meant, and what it still means today.

What we choose to remember shapes what kind of country we become.