Getting on my defensive side, I frowned, "What do you mean, Mom? Of course we don’t forget. We just don’t want to cry because it might upset everyone in the house."

She sighed exasperatedly, "I’m not asking you to cry… I just wish you guys would at least be solemn for just a little while longer."

My face burned with anger, but I bit it back. "Tonbara also touched everyone of us, Mom…" I wanted to say more, but knowing how I normally get when I’m angry; which is I get fired up, my face gets hotter, I start stammering, my lisp gets worse and I no longer make sense, I decided to leave her alone. I said goodnight to my mother, stormed back into my room and began to complain about how hard being the firstborn was.

As the days crawled by, our lives began to change. I for one became reserved, not talking much to those around me. In my heart, I was angry with everyone. My brother, my parents, my sisters, my cousin, even Tonbara and God. I was told earlier that I shouldn’t ask God why, but that was all I had in my mind. I wanted to ask why God didn’t answer my prayers or my mother’s prayers that day, but I kept thinking it was a sin to do so, so I kept it bottled up in my mind. As I continued to feel this way and not express my feelings out in the open, it turned to anger and began to eat at my heart. I became solemn, I felt guilty when I had fun with my friends, and I kept worrying about my family’s lives.

I dreaded the day when we would be alone without any visitor staying with us. Then one day, my mother gathered us together and asked me what I was so angry about. I shook my head and rushed away, crying and basically beating myself up for everything that came to mind. Now that I think of it, I believe it was the devil planting things into my mind to cause me to get mad at God and curse him, but I knew that would be insane. I kept remembering what I said to a few friends about how when someone close dies and we curse God, we are basically praising the devil, after knowing it was the devil’s intention to steal that loved one’s soul. So I get mad at the devil and continue to praise Jesus for saving my beloved brother’s soul.

Well, as I was sitting in my dimly lit room, my head buried in my lap, I began to cry and ask God if it was a sin to ask him why. My mother came to my room and I poured out all I had inside of my aching heart. She counseled me and I almost felt better, but I needed to get prayer from the one counselor I could get the best help ever. So I called Pastor John, the youth pastor and one of our family’s friend. He told me it wasn’t wrong to ask God why as long as we didn’t ever blame God for what happened to our brother. He gave me the example of Job who lost all his possessions and his family and P.J. said that Job inquired God, but never blamed him. I felt relieved and then he prayed that our family would receive strength, comfort and the word of God in our lives.

My parents went through a lot as well. I witnessed the struggle they felt as I listened with a frown on my face as they argued about grieving. I knew both of them were hurting in their own way, and the problem and cause of their fighting was they didn’t understand each other’s way of grieving their son’s loss. Like me, my father knew he was hurting and longed to cry, but felt he had to be strong for the rest of the family, so he kept in and grieved alone and in secret. My mother, on the other hand, didn’t grieve alone and in secret, she sometimes blamed herself for not going in Tonbara’s room earlier to check on him. She cried to the Lord expressing her loss of the son she had carried in her womb for nine months and loved and cared for fifteen years.

I despaired for a long time as I watched my youngest brother, now my only living brother, Gesiye. As we were out of the house, I watched him as he walked sometimes alone without the hand of his older brother around his shoulders. My heart ached as he went to the public restrooms without his older brother there at his side to protect and guide him. There were many things, I realized, that I couldn’t do for Gesiye and I knew he would have to do alone. Things like discovering puberty without the tale of experience from his brother to assure him he wasn’t turning into a freak, or whenever he needed someone to help him pick out clothes for a birthday party. There were also some things I could do, like playing video games with him, play wrestling, listen to music with him, and play sports with him. I was reassured as I looked upon his twin sister that he was not entirely alone to go through life. He had Ineye, his twin sister to grow up with him and experience education and other things with.

Sometimes at night, I longed to see Tonbara and ask for his advice on what to say or do with Gesiye. I was desperate not to see him cry as he missed his only brother and many times I felt helpless and once in a while, I got angry when he cried because I knew I couldn’t be of any assistance.

I then prayed to God for guidance and in a dream, I saw P.J.’s face. I didn’t understand at first, then one Sunday, I noticed P.J. having an actual conversation with my brother after church. I confronted Gesiye later and asked, "What do you think of Pastor John, Gesi?"

Gesiye looked at me as if I was crazy but then shrugged, "You mean John? He’s okay."

I was a little taken back by his informality with our youth pastor. Although P.J. was only twenty-four at the time, it still felt weird calling him anything else but ‘pastor.’ "Did he say you could call him John?"

He nodded, "Yeah…"

I chuckled and caressed his head. "Okay then…" Then I asked for my mother’s permission to ask P.J. to be Gesiye’s role model and friend. She said that would be a great idea, so the next week, I called P.J. and posed the question.

He was quiet for a moment and then in a soft voice, he said, "I would be honored…" I was touched by those words and I knew that he would become a good part in my brother’s life. I was relieved to know that I wasn’t alone in helping my family heal. God, friends and family are there to help me help them. Little did I know that I would need healing too in my life.