This week, my Facebook feed has been filled with photos of friends who’ve visited a beautiful 9/11 memorial in West Dundee, Illinois. Today, our family headed over to Randall Oaks park to view it.
The Healing Field is presented by True Patriots Care and is hosted at Randall Oaks (1180 N. Randall Rd. West Dundee, Illinois) through 9/11/16. There is no admission, and the exhibit runs from dawn to dusk each day.
The center of the exhibit is shaped like a star, and each point of the star is a walk-through timeline of the events of September 11, 2001.
There are 2976 flags placed in formation in the park. Each flag is adorned with a ribbon identifying the person’s role and location on September 11th — a civilian (yellow), an aircraft employee (white), a police officer (blue) or a firefighter (red.) The stories on each card are incredibly sobering to read.
Photos simply do not do this display justice. It is enormous, and you should be prepared for an overload of emotions if you go. I could not stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks while reading all of the stories of the loved ones lost in this attack.
Our sons were not born yet when the 9/11 attack took place, and while they have learned quite a bit about it in school, the tragedy became much more real to them when they saw a physical representation — an enormous field of flags — each representing a life lost.
The Healing Field will be on display through tomorrow, 9/11/16. You can learn more about the Healing Field display in West Dundee, as well as displays like it around the country, at HealingField.org.
Diane Svoboda says
I’m so sorry I didn’t hear about this in time to visit the site. If they have it again next year, or if you have a link for me to check, I would really like to go next year. Thank you for letting us know about it.
Coupon Maven says
I wrote this right after we came home – I didn’t learn until midweek that it was so close to us. It is still open today until dusk, I believe. The website is http://www.healingfield.org — they have displays all over the country today so we could look at it again next year. The staff that we spoke to yesterday said that it is scheduled to return to Randall Oaks in five years for the 20th anniversary.
Diane Svoboda says
Thank you for the link.