Phuong Nguyen (PN) and Chris Nguyen (CN)
PN: I remember that day, clearly, even twenty years later. I was sitting in office, and there goes ’BOOM’. My boss come over and say, ”It is the Federal Building. Did you have your baby at the day care there?” I say, ”Oh my god.” You was the third child brought out, you have bleeding from the head down through your face. And you were screaming and crying like crazy.
CN: A lot of times people ask me, ”What do you remember?” but I don’t remember anything.
PN: On the anniversary, we used to hide the newspaper, we turn off the TV. We don’t want you to see, to hear.
CN: And then I found out in kindergarten. Some girl brought in a clip for show-and-tell. It was the bombing, and I started crying. That’s the first time I heard about it, but I knew it was the bombing. Nobody had to say it to me. I already knew.
PN: That day—it left a scar in our life, and you know scar, it going to stay with you. It’s not going to go away.
CN: There are stories, there are interviews, there are news reports every year that tell me exactly what happened, and apparently I’m a part of it. But you remember the Harry Potter movies?
PN: Mmm-hmm.
CN: In the story his parents die and he survives somehow and he doesn’t know why and he doesn’t remember because he was also a baby. That is what it’s like for me. I guess I’ve never really talked to you and Dad about this. There’s a lot of pressure to make both of you proud, but also for all the parents who lost their own children. They won’t ever get to have that, that sense of pride when they see their own children succeeding. And when I’m thinking about what I’m doing with my life I have to think about all of the children that were in that day care that day, and how I’m lucky to have survived. I wouldn’t want to waste this opportunity that they don’t have.