"The moment of my childhood that still haunts me."

It’s a sound I will never be able to erase from my memory. And maybe that’s a good thing.

I can still remember the sound…

There’s a moment from my childhood that has stayed with me since it happened. Sometimes it will wake me up at night. Sometimes my mind will drift off and I’ll find myself back at that moment, standing on that balcony as a seven-year-old. Sometimes, like right now, it will just be a passing thought before I focus on something else.

But I’m unlikely to ever forget it.

It was a celebration, I know that. Towards the end of the year, just before or after New Year’s. I was standing on a balcony at a hotel, watching a party across the street. It was one of those balcony parties, where the entire building gets involved – every level.

There was a couple who caught my eye a few storeys up. They were talking when I started watching them. It seemed like they were in the middle of a heated argument. I can remember my eyes almost zooming in on them as they spoke. I’ll never know what they were talking about or why I chose to focus on them, but I did.

Read more: “I’m slowly experiencing true grief for the first time.”

All at once, yet unbearably slowly, the man who was standing on the balcony with a woman only moments before wasn’t there any more. I heard a scream, high-pitched, coming from the woman, and then a sound that I know I will never forget.

The moment this man’s body and the concrete collided.

The music didn’t stop, but it felt like it had. There was chaos. There were piercing screams and audible gasps. And then everything sped up again. The police came, the Ambulance came, the Coroner came. This man who had just been alive, talking, listening to the same music I had, was now gone. He was zipped inside a black body bag and wheeled away.

Read more: “I was so angry at his parents. I held them responsible for their child’s death.”

I didn’t know this man – I never even learned his name – but I was there in the most intimate moment of his life… his death.

And now, years and years later, the memory of his final moments still comes to mind every so often. As a fleeting thought. As a haunted reminder. As a distraction.

But as much as this is still in my mind, years and years later, I can only imagine the pain of all the lives he did touch during his short life.

The ache of his loss for his family, for his friends, for the woman on the balcony with him… it is immeasurable.

Do you have a memory of a random encounter that has stayed with you?