How are Sonny and his brother alike in "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin?

In "Sonny's Blues," the narrator and his brother Sonny are similar in that they, arguably, are struggling to come to terms with the loss that they have experienced in their family life.  Early in the story, the reader learns about the story of the death of the narrator's uncle.  Sonny and the narrator never even knew that their father had a brother--the fact had been kept secret from them until their mother decided that they...

In "Sonny's Blues," the narrator and his brother Sonny are similar in that they, arguably, are struggling to come to terms with the loss that they have experienced in their family life.  Early in the story, the reader learns about the story of the death of the narrator's uncle.  Sonny and the narrator never even knew that their father had a brother--the fact had been kept secret from them until their mother decided that they needed to know.  The uncle was killed in an act of racial violence, having been run over by a group of drunk whites.  Sonny and the narrator's father remained haunted by the death of his brother, and it seems that the event somehow colored the nature of their family relations.  The parents tried to protect Sonny and the narrator from the fact that violence can hit close to home, but they could not keep the boys sheltered from the world.  As the boys age and are forced to deal with the deaths of their parents, the mean streets in their neighborhood, and then the death of the narrator's daughter, neither Sonny nor the narrator appear to deal in healthy ways with the losses.  The narrator keeps his feels bottled up inside, and Sonny uses heroin as a means to escape.  It is only at the end of the story that through Sonny's music, Sonny and the narrator are able to deal with their emotional struggles.