This is my earliest vivid memory. I was six years old at the time.
I was living in London and my family and I were seeing Beauty and the Beast in the West end. We took a double decker bus and it was extremely crowded. We were in a hurry ecause we were going to be late for the show, so my family rushed offhe bus as soon as we reached our stop. My dad was alone and my mom was holding my sister's hand. However, among the confusion, I was left alone on the bus! As soon as my parents realized their mistake, it was too late; the bus had already started moving..(albeit, slowly). A passenger on the bus realized that I had been separated from my family, so he lifted me up and dangled me out the door (old style double decker buses have open doors regardless of whether they're moving). Luckily, my dad realized the passenger's stupidity and shouted, chasing the bus, at the passenger to leav me be. So i stayed on the bus with strangers until the next stop, where i met my parents. We were late for the show, but the terrifying trip is what has stayed in my memory.
My identity is certainly different from the way it was when i was six. I am no longer afraid of taking public transport by myself, and I have enough sense to know to pay attention to which stop I need to get off at (most of the time!) I still identify with the confused little girl that I once was, but I've certainly matured. If I relived my memory from twelve years ago, I would have remained calm and reacted differently. And i would not let a random stranger touch me!
My memory was somewhat similar because it was also a tragic or scary memory where i saw a crash so it did not really affect me. The only difference between the memories is that it did not effect me it affected other people.
I have a similar memory, where I got lost in Wal Mart and a stranger held my hand and helped me find my mom. At the time the whole scenario seemed to take forever. When I told my mom about it she told me it was actually only about a minute.
I was also once lost in Disney Land, with my sister. My family and other families went as a group, and my parents left me and my sister with the group and went somewhere. I think my sister and I panicked at that time, even though the others in the group said that my parents would be back soon.
My memory is similar to yours because we both got separated from our mother or father and remembered this certain scene because we were scared about being by ourselves. It shows the attachment we have to our parents. Yours is obviously scarier because you were in a big bus full of strangers and could have potentially been lost forever, while in my memory, I just didn't want to be separated from them, even though I knew they would come back for me after school ended.
I have an early memory of being separated from my parents as well. We were walking along the piers in San Francisco. I was with my family. We walked into an extremely dark room. I heard my name being called. I turned around and it was my family. I looked up and realized I was holding a stranger's hand. I was about 5 at the time. I remember being really confused because I did not know when I started holding a strangers hand.
I can relate because I distinctly remember times when I was separated from my parents at a young age. It was extremely scary. Actually, my first memory also was an account where I couldn't find my parents.
