168 empty chairs hand-crafted from glass, bronze, and stone represent those who lost their lives, with a name etched in the glass base of each. They sit on the site where the Murrah Building once stood. The chairs represent the empty chairs at the dinner tables of the victims' families. The chairs are arranged in nine rows to symbolize the nine floors of the building; each person's chair is on the row (or the floor) on which the person worked or was located when the bomb went off. The chairs are also grouped according to the blast pattern, with the most chairs nearest the most heavily damaged portion of the building. The westernmost column of five chairs represents the five people who died but were not in the Murrah Building (two in the Water Resources Board building, one in the Athenian Building, one outside near the building, and one rescuer). The 19 smaller chairs represent the children killed in the bombing. Three unborn children died along with their mothers, and they are listed on their mothers' chairs beneath their mothers' names

OKLAHOMA CITY - Hundreds are expected downtown on Saturday for the 19th Remembrance Ceremony at the Oklahoma City National Memorial. Brittany Montoya comes here not just on April 19. She also comes here during many other milestones in her life.

It's her way of keeping her mother close. But one photograph turned what Montoya hoped to be a private tribute public.

It's playtime for Carter and Cohen, but parents Brittany and Russell Montoya still try to fit in a family lesson. Planted in the backyard is a tree sapling from the Survivor's Tree at the Oklahoma City National Memorial.

Montoya always finds a way to keep her mother's spirit alive. She was only 10 years old when Karan Shepard died in the Murrah Building on April 19, 1995.

But 19 years later, Montoya worries an important message is getting lost.

"You learn 168 people. It's really important to me that they learn those were actual people," Montoya said.

What may put her mind at ease is the reaction to a photo. Montoya gave Newcastle photographer Autumn Moore permission to share Cohen's newborn pictures on Facebook. More than 4,200 people shared it or left comments.

"They're sentimental and special to me. It's hard to put them out there for others to see. Now that they're out there and people have seen them, I hope they say that was a person," said Montoya. "They were mothers and sisters, and she should've been a grandmother."

From her wedding day to the birth of her first child, Montoya hopes by sharing these very private moments, another important life lesson can be learned.





"Don't let tragedy or a loss define the rest of your life, because that's not what the person that you loved would want you to do. It's not what my mom would want me to do. She'd want me to be happy," Montoya said.

Montoya and her family will be there every April 19, not just for the remembrance ceremony, but Autumn Moore photography will take their family pictures every year next to Karan's chair.