A depressing post to start off February

The year is some point in the 90s. The place is my parents' house. The doorbell rings. For some reason, I answer. An impossibly tiny little boy is standing there, his mother a safe distance behind him. He looks up at me with terrified eyes and asks (in a voice that's almost incomprehensible for it's frightened shyness and childish lisp) if he can go into our backyard to retrieve his ball.

Remember how scared I was when I had to ring next door's doorbell and ask them the same thing, I tell him of course he can, and next time he doesn't have to ask, he can just go get it. I then inform my parents that Mr. & Mrs. Next Door's grandkids hereby officially have permission to retrieve a ball from our backyard whenever necessary. Since homeowners aren't actually the big scary monsters that small children with lost balls imagine they are, my parents shrug and continue about their lives.

I just learned that a couple of years ago, that boy, who had since grown into a teenager, died of a sudden and unexpected medical complication. The information I have suggests he was in no pain and just quietly passed in his sleep, but his life was cut short far too soon.

I didn't know him at all. My only interaction with him was that one time he rang our doorbell. But I am strongly, inexplicably, disproportionately grieving for that little boy who was scared to ask a stranger if he could get his ball back.

Edited to add: I've been trying to figure out why this saddens me so much, and I think I've worked it out. I identified with the little boy who rang our doorbell. The world was full of big, scary grownups who had unpredictable and unspoken rules. You were completely at their mercy and sometimes they might get mad at you even when your actions were completely innocent (like if your ball went in their yard). Even if they didn't actually get mad at you that often, it felt like they could at any point. The little boy did grow into a handsome and accomplished young man, but he died at an age when, for me at least, the grownup world was still big and scary and unpredictable. I'm mourning for the fact that that impossibly tiny little boy may never have gotten to enjoy the feeling of safety and security that comes with adulthood.