Category Archives: Guest Post

Missing my brother

My older brother took his own life very unexpectedly on January 22, 2024. He was discovered the next day by family. My heart is broken and I know I will never be the same. I had just talked to him a couple days before the incident and I knew he had been fighting with his wife. He told me he was very tired of it but I figured it was just another one of their episodes and he had always said he was tired of it. I wish I could go back and read the signs better and had gotten him some help. We don’t know the real reason he took his life and we will probably never know. It’s extremely painful not knowing the answers or reasons. I keep thinking about all our future plans and how we were suppose to grow old together. I miss everything about him. I do forgive him because he was truly unhappy in a lot of ways and he would always tells me that he was just venting and just wanted me to listen. I’m going to miss our calls and I am taking it day by day to get thru the grief.

I lost my younger brother and my soul is broken

I lost my younger brother on January 3rd, 2024. Im the oldest and have 4 kids of my own and I swear I felt like he was my kid too. He just turned 31 and has been battling with addiction for some time. I would try and check in with him and he would brush it off and say he’s fine.

He had so much going for him, I had him move back in with us because he was saying he didn’t like to be alone.

The night he passed, He apparently took way too much of multiple drugs including magic mushrooms and had a bad trip after a fight that had happened between him and a friend of ours I sent to check on him. He ended up jumping from our 6th floor balcony as they pretty much watched. I blame myself because I wasn’t home to save him or I shouldn’t have called the friend. I haven’t been the same, i don’t think I’ll ever be the same. I’m struggling with this hard and just want my brother back.

My Little Brother

October 19th 2021 the link in our chain was broken, the oldest of my 2 brothers was gone, he took his own life. Handsome, funny, brilliant. He discovered his wife of 21 years was cheating on him, is that the reason why? We will never know. Having lost my husband and parents, I know grief but not this kind. I miss him. I was your big sister, I wish you would have reached out instead of this rash decision. Forever loved & missed.

10/4 The worst day of my life I lost my brother m

At 38 weeks pregnant I received the news that my younger brother took his own life. I am one of four kids and him and I were the middle kids we had a special bond. It has only been 4.5ish months but I’m starting to get bigger waves of grief. I think due to the fact that I couldn’t process what was happening at the time because I had to have a baby via c section the following week. Then I had to try and be happy because that’s what having a baby is supposed to feel. The first months I’ve blacked out for the most part and honestly I’ve just been moving on day to day for my 3 kids and trying to keep going. This feeling of the why haunts me everyday. I’ve read the grief books but I still feel like this isn’t real this can’t be my life. Whenever I’m with my parents I try and put on a strong front for them so they don’t need to worry and they can just focus on grieving my brother.

Hi W

I’ve started to feel some anger now. It never really crossed my mind in the early years bc I just missed you and was trying to protect you from any person that would suggest anything bad about you. Now I’m starting to feel angry. It has been a decade. I was just so frozen. I didn’t want to be mad at you really. I was concentrating on the pain you must have felt. It’s been years of pressure from declining parents and unrest with siblings. It’s been so tiring. I can’t even begin to describe the impact. Mom and Dad declined so much and it’s been so hard. I really wish you had been here for support. I really needed you. We all did and do. Some how I picture you up there in heaven having a good time and that makes me mad. It has just been so much suffering. In another way I am comforted by this thought of you doing well but in another way I’m angry. Why did this have to happen? Why did it get so bad? I guess I’m stronger now but I didn’t want the strength to come like this and for this reason. I feel like I don’t have much more to give. It’s been so much caregiving. I’m so tired. I just really wish you’d be able to come back. For comfort. I miss you and all the fun times we had.

6 Days After Turning 49

I just lost my younger brother to suicide on December 27, 2023. He had just turned 49 on December 21st. He is the baby of the family out of all 4 of us siblings and I am only a year and a half older than him. We were very close throughout most of our lives. I was his only sister and tried to always be there for him. I am a wreck. My heart physically hurts and the guilt is overwhelming. I am still numb. I’m having trouble sleeping and eating.
He was diagnosed bipolar and fighting mental illness for a long time. I’m struggling to wrap my head around him being gone.
I have never felt this kind of sorrow.
Love you always my little Brother.

2 years on NYE

Querida hermanita;Two years ago, we were celebrating Amelia’s birth on Christmas Day. You seemed so happy! Even now, I wonder what went wrong. I know you didn’t want to die. You went to the hospital to get help. You had the crisis number next to your phone by the bed. What went wrong? My dear sister, I am so lost! So broken! I ache. Yes, I ache all the time. My heart aches My whole body aches. My mind aches. I have a difficult time celebrating New Year’s Eve anymore. I had a terrible sense of foreboding that NYE. I felt that someone had died or was going to die and Mike just told me to stop being dramatic, nothing bad was going to happen. I had no idea that it would be you, that I was actually feeling you leaving this earth. We were so connected that I felt you. And all I can say now is why why why? When will the crying stop? When will I be myself again? Will I ever? I am sorry for the things I said wrong, for the things I didn’t say right. I miss you. And I will always love you. With much love, con mucho amor, tu hermana.

37 years

Thirty-seven years ago tonight my life changed forever. I have posted here in the past, usually around this date and again in early February.
On this date 37 years ago my brother set himself on fire and lived for 43 days. Today they put you in a medically induced coma for such an event, but back then not so much.
It has gotten better for me across the years. It is still the worst thing that ever happened to me. But I do not have to will every breath I take. I don’t wake up crying from my nightmares.
I do know now my brother made a choice and it was not my fault. I know he did not wish us pain or harm. I believe he was exhausted from a life of too many secrets and maybe a bit too much alcohol. He shared himself for as long as he could.
Each of us here are on our own journey, but these pages keep us from being alone. Keep coming here. Seek help. Journal. Talk. Nurture yourself. Wrap up in a blanket on the couch. If that is all you can do, that is enough. You are more than enough.
We have each stood in the unfathomable moment of being told or finding the body. We have thought over and over, “I cannot survive this.”
I am here to say breathe. Keep breathing. Keep coming back here.

I didn’t keep my brother

My brother hung himself in precinct after telling my younger sister he would try to end it every chance he got . I feel like I failed my big brother. I have seen him suffering his entire life especially as a teenager wanting something from our mother she refused to give . I became my brothers keeper and it feels like as soon as I reached to my other family for help cuz I was so drained . I didn’t fulfill my duty as a sister . I wanted to bail him out but part of me wanted my other brother to spend his money to humble and show him money isn’t everything – let’s do a good deed with it . I wish we never bailed him out the first time. He skipped bail eventually and got picked up on another charge and killed himself . I feel sick and I feel like it’s my fault somehow in some way.