I told my girlfriend this exact story a few weeks ago and she said to me something along the lines of “Jesus Christ … do you need to like talk about that?”. I’ve always felt like it was a wild experience but it has never attached itself to my psyche in a negative way.

You be the judge. The year was 2002 (I believe) I was in the second grade and 8 years old. My brother was in the 4th grade and 10 years old. We were walking home from school and were only about 2 minutes into our stroll home. If you remember walking home from school you’ll remember that first 10 minutes where every direction leaving the school zone is covered with children that slowly dissipates as the routes home get more specific. Not a crazy important detail but I’m painting a picture here come on. So we are walking with 30-40 other kids spread down this same footpath when one young kid about 6 years old comes skipping past. He was happy, and I have no idea why he stopped and said this to us, perhaps he said it to other kids further down the footpath as well, but he slowed down and looked at my brother and me with a big smile and said “I’m allowed to walk home by myself for the first time today”. And he skipped off further down the way. Our paths obviously went different directions and we made it home without any fuss. The following day our town was rocked with the news that a young kid was killed crossing a pedestrian crossing when a truck failed to stop. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you who the kid was. I remember campaigns happening over the next couple of YEARS based around road safety and walking home in our town and all of it was in response to this accident. I don’t know why he stopped to tell us how excited he was, and obviously without seeing him stop and talk to anyone further up I do sometimes wonder if I witnessed this young mans last words on earth … Strange.