Profound Moment

Lois had three boys of her own who had grown to love Foday as though he was one of their brothers. "Yes, Aunt Lois. It's me." "Is Trokon home?" I replied. No, he's still at work. I concluded that from the sound of her voice something was either wrong or that she simply just had congestion. After a moment of silence, she finally spoke, "Foday died last night in a drive-by shooting." "What?" I shouted. What I was hearing did not make sense to me.. I remember thinking that my aunt and my cousins were probably just playing a sick joke on me. It was in that moment that Aunt Lois began to weep. Her silent cries became loud screams. That is how I knew that this was no joke whatsoever. All of a sudden I no longer wanted to be home by myself. Although I was in a state of shock, I heard myself repeatedly shouting, "no, no, no." It seemed as if time had stood still. "He was shot last night and now he's dead", she managed to say. "No, he's not", I insisted. This could not have happened. There is no way God could have allowed this to happen. No one is supposed to die when he/she is eighteen. That is just not realistic I thought.

In sixty seconds I had gone from a state of shock to a state of denial. I refused to continue the conversation with my aunt, so I hung up the phone and ran back to my room. A stream of warm tears flowed down my face. I was terrified. I may have been delusional, but in that moment I saw Foday walk through my room door and sit on the edge of my bed. This was surreal. I could not move a muscle in my body. I felt helpless. I kept imagining different scenarios in my mind. I thought that maybe he was shot in the leg or the arm, and he was still alive. I thought. Maybe it was someone that looked like Foday. I'd soon come to realize that my scenarios were not going to make up for the fact that I was living in reality and Foday had really taken two bullets to the head. There was something my brother said to me when he got home from work that I will forever remember. Without saying a word I looked in his sad eyes, and he responded, "It's not him, Ram, they got the wrong person." In that moment I held on to a little bit of hope. Five minutes later that hope was forcibly taken away from me when I heard my brother painfully crying in the bathroom. In all the years that I have know my brother I had never seen him cry like he did when he found out Foday was dead.

My parents took us to my Aunt Lois's house that night, so the boys could be together. There all of Foday's close friends gather to mourn his death. These were all boys that had grown up together and now one of them was dead. My heart ached, but I knew that their hearts ached even more. The adults soaked in their own tears tried to calm all of us down, but it was no use. This hurt could not be amended by any means. The damage was already done. I was not able to sleep that night. Every time I opened my eyes, I saw Foday in my room standing over me smiling. I was worried about Marcia. My parents had briefly spoken to her earlier that day, but I knew she had to be in more pain than anyone. For such a young woman, she had given up a stress free life and a marriage to raise her younger brother. Now he was removed from earth and taken away from her.

I wondered if Foday was alone in heaven. Who would he have to talk to? Was God being nice to him? Then it hit me that there was no one to blame but God. He had done this. I began to question