Imagine staring at someone so full of fear and dread; that someone so important to you has left forever. May 14, 2019, the day that I feared that I would never see my big brother again.

It had been a very loud night, with all the yelling and screaming. My brother got home 4 hours late and my mom was not happy about it. I woke up to yelling at around 2:30am. I couldn’t make many words out behind the closed doors but I got the gist of it. All of the sudden I heard nothing. It was silent just like it had been mere hours ago. The next thing that interrupted the silence was the soft patter of footsteps on the carpet and the door shutting. 

I knew it had happened, but that was just confirmation that he was gone. I couldn’t handle all the thinking anymore so I just went to sleep. The next morning I woke up and went to see if he was back and he wasn’t. I texted him and called him and he never answered. Not once. My mom told me that he was gone, thinking that I didn’t know. 

Hours, days, even weeks passed and I still hadn’t seen him. He eventually reached back out to me and my family to let us know he was ok. With all of the police officers and flyers it was so stressful. But one day I finally saw him again. He may have been in juvy, but at least we knew where he was and that he was alive.

2 years later he’s out of juvy/jail and he visits every weekend. He comes and helps out with babysitting. I think that experience made our bond stronger. We have a great relationship. We mess around and he will buy me chocolate if I want. I think he has grown a lot too. He doesn’t do much of the stuff he used to do and he visits almost every weekend to hangout. The most important thing that I learned during this is to not take people for granted. You never know when they could be taken from you, or if they will ever come back.