“The moment everything changes”
History – September 11 – will never change. But the way we already tell her story. You will never improve. However, where those who live and are characterized by the rest of their lives, the lights turn. Children who died on that day and after nearly 25 years have now become fathers themselves. They build their own societies and work, and many teachers, doctors, financial men, firefighters and everything between them. They have become the main stories narrators of terrorist attacks, and we need to provide space for them, and open their new views and stories of what happened after them, those who may have not heard before. Because the way they saw, in the formative weakness of childhood, had remaining effects, albeit calmly, on American society.
I did not talk to anyone about the loss of a parent on that day until I spoke to Olivia Villardi Perez. I love her immediately. It is funny, smart and good in her job and my mother now. And one of her stories, about her father, Anthony, Stong. I stayed with me. I think this is because her loss on that day was leaked to an area in which she was, and many of us who were of her age at the time believed that he is safe and enjoyable, a place to explore it. Regardless of how difficult it tried it, you could not restore this feeling.
For many Americans who were young at the time, whether they were affected directly or not, September 11 was the end of childhood. I explore the formation of adulthood in my new book, What happened for thousands of years: in defense of a generation.
Nearly a quarter of a century after it happened, it is tempting to look back on September 11 and talk about it in great terms, mysterious, clichés. History is often preceded by the phrase “tragic events of”. “The moment of everything changed.” He has become the virtual article of the United States’ History Teacher, and students are asking “to explain the effects of September 11 on America.”
These effects were enormous. We are still dealing with them today. However, the great speech that has been published often can reduce the weight of our most important memories. With the passage of contracts, the remaining cruelty on September 11 arrives at home strongly when you hear about the small and calm places it reached.
One of those places, for Olivia, was the instant Aol. In the late 1990s, Olivia was online Coolblue91. “Wonderful” because it was, “Blue” after the eifel 65 song about color, and “91” because of the year in which she was born. This is cute and everything, but what will happen when Olivia talks about the goal is that at the time, I used it to talk to her father Anthony.
Anthony and Olivia’s mother have never married, so she spent a lot of time away from him at her mother’s home in Long Island. He missed there, and the goal was his line for him. Anthony on the Internet was Navinger. “New York” because New York, “Avenger” because of Avengers, those characters Marvel. NYAVINGER was on the Buddy menu in Coolblue91, those Rolodex digital that lit the users and alerted a voice when someone came online. Olivia could not drive to Anthony’s house yet, and certainly couldn’t walk there. But whenever the digital stars align, the door to open AOL Creaky appeared, which means that Anthony was online as well and they could talk about anything. Olivia believed that this was the most wonderful.
Anthony was a cool father. I loved video and high-tech objects-and then the target-and has just got a new job that does digital things in the city center in a place called Cantor Fitzgerd. He wanted to share it with Olivia, and did. Olivia remembers this time that he gave her, “Take your child to work day.”
He said: “We will lie.”
He and Olivia stood outside his office at the bottom of Manhattan. The plan was to tell the Anthony president that Olivia had to come to work on that day because of the child’s emergency. The father and his daughter collected their heads and looked at the huge building that Anthony just started working on. It was a scene, which is a giant: approximately 10 million square feet of rental office spaces, the size of three Disney lands. More than 430 companies from about 30 countries. There were 15 miles of the elevator. They reached one and shot up.
Olivia remembers walking to the Anthony office, the pictures there. There was an open seating plan, low breaks between offices, a lot of friendly obsessive in yellow computers with leaves everywhere, chunky calculator, Wall Street style from the beginning of the millennium where the allowances did not disappear completely but loose, folded trousers, and the white hearts ruled the day. Type of clothes Chandler Ping she used to wear.
“Someone gets this girl a shirt!” A worker invited. An Anthony colleagues liked him and were enjoyable and useful and loved the presence of a 10 -year -old child in the building. Olivia does not want to end today. Only with her father. The goal was to chat with him. The presence with him was much better.
“Call me to tell me how your new school looks,” he said, falling her in her mother’s house that night. It was in late summer, early September, and the moisture of Long Island was still flowing and moisturizing. Olivia was about to start the sixth grade.
Ninety percent of Americans discovered around 11 September on television. Olivia discovered about her through whispers in her sixth grade.
Anywhere, children began to withdraw from the room. It didn’t take a long time until rumors begin to flow.
“The terrorists put sharks in people’s bathrooms,” a person said. For this reason, parents were appearing to take their children home. Each story was more crazy than the last.
“Please”, one of his colleagues in Olivia begged the teacher. “Why do all these children leave?” Teacher frequency. She was not supposed to say anything.
The next period was lunch. By that time, Olivia already knew Anthony Matt.
No one told her directly, but based on what her teacher said about the World Trade Center, she only knew. It has already been the past hours. Anthony was at work bright and early. He was always committed to dates, and he was never late. There was on his office with pictures of her, with computers, account and colleague who said, “Make this girl a shirt!”
They had the funeral of Anthony. Olivia hid on the bottom floor of the funeral salon, a spiral ball and crying. You did not know how to lose someone like this. Putting the stage of puberty before puberty. This feeling of safety in childhood in the homes and meadows in childhood in Long Island, promoter and cars used. Olivia felt as if she were decades old. The consequences of sadness, such as great words, continued after a long period of the funeral, which grows so vulgar as it has become necessary for it.
But there was this thing that Olivia continued to do. This coolblue91 is still doing. She knew that it was not logical. But as it is old, with the conversion of the telephone conversion to the wide range, and desktop computers to laptops, Olivia continued to add the name of its screen, NYAVINGER, to the list of friends.
One night, I heard the sound of the loud doors. Niafinger saw online. Almost I was thrown.
Did you return?
Was it somewhere in the world – alive – login to America online? After all that time, they did not find his remains.
But her uncle was only Anthony’s brother, who logged into his target account, and closed him.
Excerpt What happened for thousands of years: in defense of a generation By Charlie Wales. Copyright © 2025 by Charlie Wales. It was published and reprinted with the permission of Abrams Press, a fingerprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved.
What happened for thousands of years: in defense of a generation By Charlie Wales