For the majority of the poem, much information is only suggested to the reader through the use of foreshadowing. This heavy use of foreshadowing also serves to distance the narrator from what is happening around him, placing him in a quasi-observatory state. The narrator sees his father and mother crying, his neighbors and family friends offering their condolences, and the ambulance arriving with the corpse all allude to his brother's death. The reader does not even have an idea who died until the very end, knowing only that the death greatly affected the narrator and those around him.