My brother James was my life partner, not the kind you find in your twenties and marry, but the real lifelong kind. The ones you watch Saturday morning cartoons with and have after-school snacks everyday with when you get home from school. The ones you learn the latest M.C. Hammer dance moves with. The ones that are your playmates, role models, guides through your teen years. 

James was not just my brother but also my best friend…the kind of best friend that loves you when you're at your worse, celebrates you when you're at your best, always believes in you, and is always there for you. 

He was three years older than me. When he lost his life at age 47 on Friday, June 14, 2024, I lost a bit of mine. Losing a sibling hits differently. I lost my father in 2010 and my mother in 2012, but my brother was…my brother, almost like a twin by heart. Our names became one: "Lil'man-and-Nesha". Our struggles were bonded, and so were our joys and our perspectives on the world. 

It felt as if I stopped fully living for a year: 365 days of part-time living and full-time grief. A gear from God’s throne of grace, however, shifted in me on the one-year anniversary of his death. I was able, for the first time, to celebrate his life and not mourn his death.