The Pain is Still Present

The worst day of my life was hearing the news of the death of my younger brother Louie. It’s been five years and the pain is still present.

He was only 53 years old and sadly, he died in his sleep. The knife is still wedged in my heart, and each time I think about him, it jabs me deeper and deeper.

I still recall that day of receiving the news. It is something I will never forget. It was a Friday morning, January 3, 2014. A new year had just rolled in. I had awoken early and, from my bedroom, I made my way to the living room. I sat on my recliner and with technology these days, you don’t necessarily have to turn on the T to hear the news. You can just turn your smart phone on, which is what I did.

What grabbed my attention was the death of a well-known actor, James Avery. The father of a popular sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, a show I always watched and enjoyed. He died of a heart attack. It saddened me to hear the news of his death; the irony of my own brother dying of a heart attack soon afterwards.

After reading the news, I adjusted my recliner to get some more sleep, but my cell phone started to ring and I didn’t answer the call because I didn’t recognize the number. But little did I know, the call was coming from Kansas City where my brother had been living. I received a message and these are the words I will never forget. The message said: “Hello Yolanda, this is Shelly. I don’t know if you know but Louis passed away.”

I immediately tossed my phone out of my hand, and I felt an adrenaline come over my entire body. It felt like I was coming up from water. I gasped and I jumped up and went to my son Daniel’s room.

I said, “Daniel, your Uncle Louie passed away.” He said, “What?!” My heart was pounding terribly and I was trembling.

I said, “Daniel, please listen to the message and tell me if it’s true.” He listened and he said, “Mom, it was Shelly, and she said Uncle Louie passed away.”

The shock was too much for me to handle. I started crying and crying and I could not stop, then I began to scream and scream! My knees buckled and I fell to the floor. I continued to cry for what seemed like an eternity. At that moment, I felt like I was drowning in my own tears.

After all the weeping, I called Shelly asked her what happened. Shelly was a close friend of my brother. She said she had dinner with him New Year’s evening at his place and she had left around 7:30 pm. He walked her to her car and as she drove off, he waved goodbye to her. She watched him from her rearview mirror.

I started thinking when I last talked to him and I recalled the last text message I sent him. I texted him on New Year’s Eve: “Have a Happy and safe New Year’s brother, I love you.” He replied, “I love you too, sis.”

After I hung up with Shelly, I called the mortuary to get some information. I was having these crazy thoughts that maybe it wasn’t my brother, or maybe he staged his own death. Did he commit suicide? I was having these insane thoughts as to what could have happened.

I wasn’t able to go to Kansas City until five days after his death due to bad weather. I asked the mortuary to send me a photo of my brother so that he could be properly identified. I had to ask if they there was any sign of a struggle when they found him. I thought maybe he tried to get up from bed. But they said he was lying on his back with the covers on him. It seemed he went to sleep and he never woke up.

Shelly said he was found by the maintenance man. He didn’t show up for work that day and his boss got worried and sent someone to check on him.

When I received the photo of my brother from the mortuary, I could not look at it, and each time I tried to bring myself to look at it, I would feel anxious and start to tremble. I asked my older brother Ricky to look at it, and he said, “Sis, that’s our baby brother.”

I could never bring myself to look at the photo until recently, after five years. What I saw in the photo was my brother. He just looked like he was asleep.

It’s been five years and the pain is still present.

Yolanda Reyna is a member of the writing class offered through the Cerritos College Adult Education Program. It is held off-campus at the Norwalk Senior Center.