My eldest brother suffered much growing up in our father's house. Much like myself he looked for love in all of the wrong places. He was molested at the age of sixteen and lived his life as a homosexual until the age of twenty-six. He would get HIV tests done regularly only to test negative every time.
A friend of his had stopped by our home one day to speak with him. His friend looked sickly, he had loss a lot of weight. He looked frail and weak and he had a towel over his mouth. We found out later he had AIDS. He wanted to inform my brother and urge him to get tested because they had slept together. Once again my brother took the test and the results again were negative for HIV.
Much time had passed and I haven't seen my brother because he had moved out of our father's house. One day we received a phone call that he was in the hospital with pneumonia. I knew in my heart my brother had AIDS because I heard it in my ear. The tests from his blood work soon revealed that had full blown AIDS! When the pneumonia was gone he was released from the hospital. He stayed at our father's house for awhile and my dad was very nasty towards him. The way my father reacted made the both of us (my eldest brother and I) uncomfortable. Later he found out he had lung cancer and he began to go through radiology treatments for it. Parts of his face had turned black for he was very lighted skinned. He had become so uncomfortable living there that he had to leave our father's house. Our mother came and picked him up and he lived with her. She gave up her bedroom for him (her and her husband). She took very good care of him and she also took him to church. My brother repented of his sin and gave his life to the Lord. He contacted every one he encountered and informed them of the disease he had and apologized to them.
On Easter of 1994 my brother was filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak in tongues as the spirit gave him utterance and shortly there after in the same month after my twin and I turned eighteen, he died. My mother took his death very hard because he lived with my father most of his life so she missed a lot and didn't have much time to make up or catch up. After his home going service I went back home to Gary, Indiana and my father and I were into it a lot. I moved in with my boyfriend and his mother. His mother was an evangelist and I took a big liking to her.
One particular night she asked me if I wanted to be saved and I looked to my boyfriend for validation and she said, "You can't do it for him, this is between you and God". I said, "Yes" and we all formed a circle in the bedroom I slept in with my son. The moment I surrendered to God and accepted Jesus as my savior, the fear of the Lord came upon me. That night when I went to bed I saw a red light outside of my window and I heard dogs barking. My son began to talk in his sleep but someone was talking to him. He began to touch my hip and he asked the one who talked to him, "Right here?". I moved his hand and then he put his hand on my arm and asked, "Right here?". I felt two stings in my arm as if they were immunization shots, so I moved his hand again and then immediately I was pinned down and could not move. I went to speak and couldn't speak then suddenly I see a black figure kneeling on the side near the foot of the bed and it spoke to me. His voice was scary and deep and he said to me, "Your date for death has been cancelled, I'm about to attack someone else in your family", and he literally flew out of the room. Immediately after that I was released from being pinned down and I saw this bright light in the ceiling of my room in the corner. This light was so bright I cannot describe it, but descending from the light was one in a white robe. The robe was so white that bleach couldn't compare to the brightness, radiance, and whiteness of this robe. I looked at the one in the robe and he was looking at his hands. The sleeves on the robe were so long and wide they looked like wings and then he began to speak while looking at his hands.
He said, "Ma, it's gone, I'm clean, it's gone", so I looked at the face of the one who spoke and it was my eldest brother. His face was so bright and the blackness from the radiation was completely gone! His feet were bright as well and his body was suspended in the air, meaning his feet never touch the floor. I asked myself, "Doesn't he know he's not in his mother's room?". The vision left and the room was pitch black again. My boyfriend came in my room and said, "Did you see that?" and my reply was, "You saw it too?" and he said, "Yes". As we began to talk I found that we were talking about two different things. He never saw my brother, he only saw the dark shadow that flew out of my room.
The next day I drove to Illinois to see my mother and I told her what I saw and she began to praise God and thank him. She told me she had asked God if my brother made it in and she wanted a sign or an answer that he did. I came with the answer she was waiting for and her heart was relieved though she grieved his death until she died.
It makes me sad that he was stuck with an abuser in his hour of need and I thank goodness the tables turned and he went to be with family that love him instead.
The empathy your family felt for him is quite strong. Mirroring the experience in that much detail is powerful.
Of course he went to the good place he was an innocent.
I'm glad your family got some reassurance after such a difficult experience.