“I love you Bhaiya and I hope to see you again when my time comes to an end.” Bhaiya, meaning brother in my native language Bengali, was what I used to call my only brother for 18 years of my life. This sentence was my closure to a Facebook post in honor of him. Posted on January 29, 2016; the day after his death. In my 12 years of writing in school, that post had to be the one I was most proud of.

For almost 18 years of my life, I was the guy who kept everything bottled up inside. I never felt the need to share things in my life that weren’t directly relevant to others. I always believed that opinions on how I feel will never make a difference on how I actually felt. For that reason, I’ve always kept my feelings to myself.

All that changed starting April 24, 2015. Just a day before my birthday when we got the news. “Your brother has been diagnosed with cancer.” Words that rip hearts into thousands of pieces as if it were thrown into a shredder over and over again. Just like that, keeping things to myself began getting harder and harder. Yet, I never wanted to give anyone the inconvenience of having to console me. I had to be strong as the eldest son and oldest brother in my family, making sure we didn’t fall apart.

But everything has its limits. January 28, 2016. The day I kissed his cold face, carried him out the hospital, put him in a ditch and slowly covered him with dirt. The day I realized that he’s actually gone. I won’t ever be able to see him again. I won’t ever be able to talk to him again. I won’t ever be able to ask him to fix my problem. I won’t ever be able to have an older brother. It was that day that the bottle I kept all my feelings in, just had to burst.

I shared the relationship I had with my brother and how hard, yet easy, it was to lose someone that was so close to you. It only took a couple hours for hundreds of reactions to my post, comments full of support, people sharing to relay the message, and incoming messages from hundreds of people, many of which I didn’t even know. It was this moment that I realized, how great it felt to finally get it all out. Not only did I provide myself with the relief of getting all this off my shoulders, but I received so much support from people around the country. Of those supporters, reading my post made many of them realize how much every moment with your family counts.

All this made me realize the good in sharing moments like this. Not only did it help me emotionally, but I helped others in reminding them to cherish every moment they have with their loved ones. This writing has made me realize how powerful of a remedy writing is to both the mind and body. After this negative event occurred in my life, I had an inherit desire to make sense of it all. Writing allowed me to create an understandable narrative of the event while actively confronting my feelings and the emotions it has produced. Since then, I learned that the greatest agony is bearing an untold story inside you.