It’s funny how a single moment can hold a lesson that echoes throughout our lives. Yet recently, I found myself returning to one—eight years ago, on a bitterly cold December afternoon in 2018, it had me asking myself: what makes a moment defining? Does time reveal its significance, or do we feel it as it happens—a subtle shift, a fork in the road? The answer is a personal one. Only we can determine the moments that shape us, but they often hide within the constant motion of our lives, waiting to be rediscovered, once we’re ready to delve back into our past. 

We were in Covent Garden, my brother and I, on our way to meet a family friend for a long overdue catch-up at the Lamb & Flag pub. It had been years since I’d spent any time with Joel, who had remained close to my brother. Will had convinced me to come out for the afternoon, in invitation he thought would do me good.  

We shared much in common Joel and I—a dry, at times cutting sense of humour, a love of cricket, even a vague commitment to politics. It should have been an occasion to be excited for. Yet, like most aspects of my life back then, I was numb to such emotions. Those situations felt heavy with anxiety. I was not there for friendship, nor for family. I was there to drink.

I knew that going out with both Will and Joel, who were three and four years my senior, with secure jobs and a healthy bank balance, would guarantee me a few free drinks. Although I never gave this vulnerability away.

As Will and Joel talked, I nodded along, my mind fixed on when the next round would come. And eventually, relief. 

“Whatever you’re drinking,” I replied. 

I felt pity for my smugness. I had got what I wanted, but it never felt good leeching off others. In those lonesome days I always found a way to drink. Whether it was picking up a half finished pint from an emptied table, or stealing from the shelves of Tesco, I felt like I had to drink. Drinking was the way I silenced the snake pit, this constant hiss that curled around my mind. 

I wasn’t a bad person—I had good intentions. But I was numb. That numbness showed in my eyes. Often glazed over, they revealed the exhaustion within. The ‘windows to the soul’, as they say. My drinking had stopped being a habit and its snare was beginning to tighten. I was sleepwalking into its trap. 

My appearance was one of anonymity. A desperate irony for someone so longing to be seen—My face was pasty and gaunt, my posture hunched. I wore a slim ash-grey overcoat, with black Oxford shoes and a black Oxford shirt, my navy jeans were skin-tight. And then there was my voice—muffled and gravelly. Mumbling under an adopted pitch and tone. Numb to a truer sense of self; or from giving a voice to my sadness.

When we experience adversity, It’s a hard to be introspective. I was a kid, playing in the adult world, and at the time, I had no clue what it was that weighed me down. But looking back, it seems so obvious. My fathers illness had long taken its toll on me. 

He had been suffering from cancer, not that we knew. It had been gnawing away at his spinal tissue for months, giving him a hunchback appearance that the doctor assured us was a muscular issue. He was a shell of the man who’d been diagnosed with Parkisons and Dementia only four years prior. Those years had taken the man that raised me. He’d lost his height and the strength that accompanied it. So to see his back hunch was no real surprise. He was weakening. Muscular issues seemed plausible. 

After graduating that summer, my first taste of work had overwhelmed me. I’d been working as a sales-rep for some nondescript technology company in Liverpool Street. The job paid well and I needed money. But the previous years had not been kind. The loneliness I felt in my depression had paved the way for the bad habits that had begun to crystallise. On a subconscious level I’m sure I knew I was losing my dad, but that was a truth I never admitted. These issues compounded in London, and their weight dragged me down each day. The joy I’d feel in leaving that office took me only as far as the Waterloo & City line. At which point the despondency of the day would catch up with me. The only time I’d contemplated taking my life, was on the dreaded banks of those platforms. 

After handing in my notice, I retreated back to my parents house. London had spat me up, and I drank away the shame. Unemployed and resentful, I remained there until that bitter day in December, hoping to rebuild some of the damage the preceding months had caused. Whilst at home, I fell into a-sort-of emotional paralysis. I spent my days on the sofa, next to my dad, who was withering away before me. Yet in my own sorrow I could not see it. My only way to mask what was happening was to drink. Alcohol filled me with a confidence that I otherwise could not offer, the confidence to navigate the mess I was in with perceived dignity. It allowed me to support him as the companion he desperately needed. As a father and a friend, he was my closest ally. He died three months later. 

“You want another, Harry?” Joel asked. The first pint had given me the gusto to make a request this time. 

“Guinness, mate.” my zoned-out response caused irritation with my brother, so he ushered me inside to help. He often did stuff like that. Redirecting my manners if I’d led them astray. A big brother in the truest sense, growing up, I wanted to be just like him. His charm always seemed to guide him toward the right thing, keeping him steps ahead of where I strived to be, until he too fell victim to the pain of our dads inevitable demise. From then on, anger was his outlet, something me and him could share. 

As we waited for our order, we spoke about the state of the nation, lambasting the characters who had led our country into a post-Brexit world. Joel saw hope, I saw only despair. In those days, my political intrigue was hollow. A skin I’d wear as an identity, or as a means to speak my truth. I wished to be seen, with only feeble commitment to the issues at hand. 

We stepped outside into the cold, I watched my breath freeze into the late-afternoon air. With a fresh pint in hand, I scanned the smoking area. And then. I saw him—an old man, haunched over two weathered sticks, his trench coat scuffed, his face tired. He was homeless, that much was clear. 

Without thinking, I muttered words that have never left me: “What does that cripple want?” 

In many ways I didn’t mean it, but in those years, my mind was a breeding toxicity. I had convinced myself those comments were funny, that punching-down was harmless. I’d seen friends react in hysterics to this type of insulting humour, so I’d thought to adopt it as my own. As a no-bullshit guy who said things as they were. I was kidding myself. I was cynical, suspicious of the world and deeply insecure. Those words were venom in my mouth. 

Only now I understand, the way we see ourselves is a mirror. We are what we reflect. If we speak ugliness, that is all the world will show us. But how could I have known that the next half-hour would change me as it has? That moment—my next interaction—would teach me a kindness that has defined my growth ever since. Only recently did I realise it was then that the doors slid open. The most subtle of shifts. And in that moment, walked David Andrews.

He was standing at the edge of the smoking area, in the alleyway outside the 18th century Georgian pub. As we walked towards him, the volume of his gruff East-London accent raised, as did his disheveled appearance. An unkempt mop of white hair sat atop a leathery oval face, with a hawkish nose that seemed to draw his lips backward. His eyes were sunken into his chalky skin, but they were alert. Keen with intent and engaging throughout.

Will explained that he was looking for money to stay in a shelter that tonight. As he spoke, David sized me up and down, slowly scanning the boy who’d stepped before him. A tired smile etched from the corner of his lip. It felt invasive and I looked away. His scanning made me uncomfortable. As did his cramped stance. His compact frame—hidden beneath baggy jumpers and the warn-out trench coat—balanced upon two walking sticks. It was a surprise he could remain upright. His body was taut amongst the poles, Joel suggested we take a step backwards to the ledge that framed the wall. Then David began to explain his story. 

The man we met had fought in a number of wars—the Falklands, the Gulf, Afghanistan—dedicating his life to service. He spoke of those experiences with pride and with the belief that he was fighting for liberty, for the honour of defending Great British ideals. But ultimately, his country didn’t defend him. His voice carried the weight of a soldier who had much to forget and little room to forgive. He was indignant. Deeply wounded by the injustice he was living. As he spoke, I began to share that anger. 

Once David retired from the military, civilian life destabilized him. He struggled to hold down work, citing his mental state as the primary disruptor. And while his mind agonized in unresolved wounds, his body followed suit, slowly decaying. By the time I met him, he was wholly reliant on his walking sticks—a necessary crutch for a man who had long lost full mobility. He explained that an untreated infection had accelerated his decline. It was as if the trauma that had infected his mind had manifested in physical form. This was the twisted fate of the man I’d mocked. A man whose patriotic fervor had withered into a fragile, feeble form. It’s a bitter irony faced by so many of our nation’s veterans. Their scars of war are left to fester, deteriorating until—like David—the very hands that once defended, now beg in futility for the kindness of loose change. 

The truth was, there were many grey areas in David’s story; I could not know whether his disillusionment with public service was self-inflicted, or hyperbolic, or if his story was one of abandonment from his state. In my mind, both then and now, that truth is irrelevant. For the only one, the only reality—the one I shared with that man—was one of desperation. It was perhaps the first time in my life where I cast aside cynicism and experienced the raw truth that lay before me. No prior context mattered, there was no judgment to pass. The only truth was the one that beheld my eyes. And that truth was beginning to come clear.

David shuffled back into the wall, clearing his throat in a brief fit of sickly coughing. Then, wiping the flem from his fingerless gloves, he continued his story. 

His legs had betrayed him—forcing him from inconsistent, often chaotic work, into none at all—I saw the weight of it settle on him. His mind had fractured alongside his body, leaving him unable to pick up the pieces. He was now at the mercy of the streets. Which was where we found him, or rather, he found us. For the homeless, the reality of winter was right there. We three would finish our drinks, find our way home and fall into the warmth of our beds. But for David, this season of uncertainty was only just beginning. The shelter our donation would provide would not keep the cold nights at bay. His only solace was tied to fortune.

I felt very little sadness in that period of my life. Beyond my own sorrow, I could never find the patience. Such can be the case with depression—it isolates the self, convincing you that the pain you hold is absolute, that it cannot be shared. But in the presence of this man, I started to feel my body agitating in sympathy. The whole thing seemed so wrong. How could he endure such hardship? 

We stood numb, absorbed by David’s pitiable state. Yet, whilst my companions offered quiet sympathies, I remained silent, the only one yet to speak. My mouth had frozen shut. The questions that filled my mind hid in shadow, but my eyes carried the emotion in my heart. We stood motionless and I kept my gaze. I often faltered in maintaining eye contact. My mind was frequently elsewhere, my gaze unfocused. Yet in the swell of David’s story, my awareness never wavered. And although I said not one word throughout, the attention in his clouded eyes were largely on me. Perhaps I saw my own father’s decay in his, maybe he saw the struggle behind my eyes. But David and I were sharing a moment of connection, and the emotional walls I’d put up had begun to breach. 

As he met my gaze with a warm understanding, something inside me cracked open. Then, he spoke—words so undeserved, so unexpected, that they stunned me into tears. 

“You alright, son?” 

When we look back on the storybook of our lives, there are moments of chain reaction which ripple beyond their space in time. They form the basis of the individuals we will eventually become. We’re not meant to know when they arrive. And often it's precisely when we need them. For me, the empathy I needed came from the most unlikely places. In an instance, I judged him. Yet when I’d needed it, he offered me a kindness. Subtle in isolation, but a profound lesson in the context of my life. A reminder that suffering is the most human of emotions, it’s a truth we all share.

As the echoes of those three words lingered, amongst the taste of salty tears, I stood idle. The disbelief that in spite of David’s hardship, he would offer me such a moment of humanity. And whilst my body tingled in unworthiness, in newfound sensitivity, the world around us ground to a halt. There was only this commonality shared between David and I, and for a moment—whether seconds or minutes—we spoke without words. Then, something happened—something so loving, so gentle my hardened edges would have recoiled at the thought only an hour before. We embraced. I hesitated at first, a stranger to tactility. But he pulled me in without question. It was awkward, rigid, unfamiliar. Two souls starved of tenderness. But in its awkwardness, it was real. 

I don’t remember saying goodbye, nor have I seen him since. I can only hope that David’s story inspired a soul, better and more able than I, to lift him from the cold to a brighter tomorrow. 

Defining moments don’t announce themselves. They’re not greeted by fanfare, or rapturous applause. They’re silent envoys. Slipping in and out of our lives, only to be recognised once we’ve embarked on the journey they set us on. That afternoon in Covent Garden, in the empathy shown by a man who had suffered in ways I could hardly imagine, a defining moment found me. 

Aside from what I’d watched on television, or through those closest to me, David's story was the first I’d heard that really moved me. He came and went in no more than an hour, but the impact he left has been seismic. He was the first of many temporary people to come and go from my life. Cherished guests who—in the experiences they shared—left an imprint that has continuously opened my mind into loving compassion. For like David, it's clear to me that the stories and struggles of everyday people are what compel me most. For I believe that inside us all, there’s a story to be told. And with each one I’m blessed to give the floor, my perspective widens, as does my understanding of the human experience. Yet only with time, and years of turbulent healing have I come to recognise the significance of those moments that make us. And only through compassion, can I be a better man.