Another June 16 has come and gone and, as with every other year, our wounds lie open again and we just wait now, as a family, for them to heal. Once again we try to find closure, although it never really seems to come.This is what remembering Hastings does to us and I have no doubt that what we feel today is what every other friend and family member of the June 16 heroes and heroines endures each year. Remembering is as difficult and painful as it is complex.I was 19. Hastings, the baby of our family, was 17 when he was shot in the head, some time around 10am that June day. He was taken to Baragwanath Hospital but died a few hours later.Dr Malcolm Klein, who attended to him, told us our brother was clinically dead upon arrival. He had suffered a fatal injury.As tragedy would have it, Hastings was carrying a note in his breast pocket addressed to my brother Leslie. So when his corpse was taken to the hospital morgue, it was Leslie's name that was entered into the register.story_article_left1In the days that followed, my parents, my siblings and I traipsed all over Soweto searching for our brother, but could find no trace of him. Finally, towards the end of June, we returned to the morgue in Baragwanath for the umpteenth time and a friendly administrator kindly relented and allowed us to search the bodies for ourselves.That was when we found Hastings, void of all life, lying on a cold and sterile tray, decked out in his school uniform. He was buried on July 5.Hector Pieterson had already been buried by then. Thankfully for Hector's family, that unforgettable image of Hector in the arms of Mbuyisa Makhubu with a distraught Antoinette running by his side ensured he was given the heroic sendoff he deserved.It is also because of that photo, beamed around the world, that the international community learnt what was happening in South Africa.The same cannot be said for Hastings, though, and many, many years passed before he found his place in our history. As a family, it is of no interest to us who died first. We simply want to find peace for ourselves and the soul of our brother, once and for all. But for that to happen, we need to know the truth.Hastings's death, and the circumstances surrounding it, shattered our family to the core. My two sisters and I went into exile later that year, only a few months after our brother's death.We had never thought of exile until Hastings was so brutally killed and it was his death that led to our family being decimated in 1976. My adopted brother, Boitumelo, also jumped the border and joined the ANC.Leslie and my parents stayed at home. My father withdrew into himself. My mother began a downhill spiral from which she never recovered. She died a couple of years later, at the age of 52. If we do not know what happened to Hastings, we will never be able to close that painful chapter of our lives During our time in exile, we learnt that a certain Colonel Kleingeld had told the Cillié commission, an inquiry set up by the regime not long after the uprising to probe the events of June 16, that it was he who had shot Hastings dead.Kleingeld also claimed that Hastings had been a troublemaker and was inciting violence and hence was shot in some twisted form of self-defence.This is grossly untrue. As history has taught us, the students of June 16 were adamant to stage a peaceful march. In fact, Hastings was walking at the rear of the crowd, along with Barney Mokgatle, Tsietsi Maleho and Murphy Morobe, to ensure that the youth would not step out of line.To strengthen his story, Kleingeld told the commission that Hastings was shot a couple of kilometres away, at a bridge near Orlando Stadium, bending the truth to read as if our brother had departed from the students to incite violence elsewhere.Not long after we returned from exile, the Gauteng government erected a statue at that bridge to honour Hastings and it was on that spot that we would focus our minds when we would recall our younger brother.But four years ago, Barney came forward to tell us that he was standing next to Hastings when he was shot on Vilakazi Street, taking the first bullet on that June morning.story_article_right2Others have since come forward to concur with what Barney has told us.Each June 16 we now lay a wreath at that spot, hoping that we are helping his soul find its final resting place.Earlier this year we tracked down Dr Klein, who travelled from the US to commemorate the 40th anniversary with us. This was another big milestone for us, considering he was the last person to attend to Hastings before he died.But just as we thought we were inching towards some form of closure, or at least more closure than we have previously had, someone came forward to tell us that they don't believe it was Kleingeld who shot Hastings, but another officer. They are yet to present the evidence.If we do not know what happened to Hastings, we will never be able to close that painful chapter of our lives. Closure only comes with acceptance, which in turn is only possible with knowledge of the full facts.Although Kleingeld died in 2007, there are many other officers out there who were with him on the day and who know who shot the tall young man at the back of the crowd. Of that I have no doubt.As South Africans, we know the broad history of apartheid and knowing our past has helped us move forward as a nation.But as individuals and families, I don't believe the same progress is being made.We need to know what really happened, so that we can finally lay the ghosts of 1976 to rest, the ghosts of the young men and women who took the bullets that began to lay the foundation for the freedoms we are enjoying today...