OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — They try to forget the 33-year-old who is to die next week for the Oklahoma City bombing, but they can't. They're still crying for the unfinished plans of the 33-year-olds who died six years ago.

It is no consolation that Timothy McVeigh's life will go no further than those of the six 33-year-old victims, who were among the 168 people killed in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

"His life ended the day of the bombing. He just hasn't realized it yet," said Patrick Reeder, who lost his 33-year-old wife and his mother-in-law to McVeigh's bomb. "It will not bring anybody back."

McVeigh, who turned 33 on April 23, is to be executed Wednesday. Unlike McVeigh, who has said he anticipated he would be caught and put to death, the victims were making plans for the rest of their lives.

Patrick and Michelle Reeder were high school sweethearts who recently returned to Oklahoma after living in Asia, where Patrick Reeder had been stationed as a Marine.

"We just wanted to be that old couple, kind of staggering down the mall and holding hands," Reeder said. "She was getting more beautiful as she grew older. Her beauty came from inside."

Displays at the Oklahoma City National Memorial Center museum, which opened earlier this year near the site of the bombing, reveal more about other 33-year-olds who died that day.

Lyle Cousins lost his wife, Kim, before they could celebrate their first anniversary. Now he and her 9-year-old son, Corey, are trying to live out the dreams she had for them.

Lucio Aleman Jr.'s plans also revolved around his children. He had planned to build a swing set and start a T-ball league. Teresa "Toni" Alexander was working two full-time jobs to send her children to Catholic school. Andrea Blanton kept busy with arts and crafts.

All of them, except Alexander, worked in the federal building. She had gone there that day to get a Social Security card for her 8-month-old son.

She would be proud to know her oldest son is now in college and her daughter is finishing high school, said her mother, Erma Page.

"She wanted them to do better than she had," Page said.

Thirty-three-year-old Valerie Koelsch, who was the marketing director at the Federal Employees Credit Union, worked with Catholic youth groups.

"She was a good example of how you can live your life and get the most out of it," said her mother, Rosemary Koelsch

Since the bombing, Lyle Cousins and Corey have moved into the house Cousins and his wife had talked about buying. They race motorcycles three times a week and try not to think about McVeigh.

At one point, Cousins had thought of watching McVeigh's execution on a closed-circuit broadcast in Oklahoma City for victims' families. He changed his mind, certain that if McVeigh had anything to say in the end, it would only be hurtful.

On the day of the execution, he plans to drive Corey to school as he always does.

"Normal turns into something different after a tragic event like this," he said. "Normal is a whole new thing, and if people haven't found it after six years, this is not going to change it."

Reeder has found a sort of peace as well after years of painfully reliving the events of April 19, 1995, in his mind.

After his wife's death, he said, he tried to "drink Oklahoma dry," then nearly killed himself by not eating. In 1996, his heart stopped on an operating table but doctors brought him back.

He finally decided to seek counseling. He studied religion. He picked up one of his old dreams, to coach football, and became a volunteer at a Catholic high school.

About a year ago, Reeder decided he was against the death penalty. Part of it had to do with his conversion to Catholicism and part with a nagging question: Is it justice or revenge?

"There's a lot of good people waiting for this execution to cure them," he said. "Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones. I found peace out of this."