Edye Smith and Hallie Levine

What horrified much of the nation about the Oklahoma City bombing was the knowledge that nineteen children—ranging in age from three months to five-and-a-half years—were killed in the blast. Edye Smith had just dropped off her two boys, Chase, three, and Colton, two, at the day-care center on the second floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. When she arrived at work, she heard a huge explosion and raced outside to see black smoke filling the sky. She ran back to the federal building and saw that it was almost completely destroyed. It was then, she tells freelance writer Hallie Levine, that she knew her two children were dead. Fifteen of the center's twenty-one children died in the blast.

In the following essay, Smith describes how her life changed after her sons' deaths. She...