Two weeks ago, I put up this post about heading into the High Holidays still mourning the loss of my father, but in a very different place grief-wise than I was a year ago.

Two hours after I posted that, I found out that my younger brother was dead.

At 34 years old and a very troubled soul, his life was snuffed out in an accident outside of a small, nowhere town in Kansas.  He was on his way to California in the hopes of starting over, escaping his demons, and finally getting some treatment for his advanced alcoholism that had taken over control of his life.

But he didn’t make it.

He is now with our father, and my mom and husband and I are all that’s left of our little nuclear family.

And we are devastated.  I am absolutely broken. Despite everything our family had gone through, he was still my brother and to lose him so tragically was not something for which I was prepared. He lived on the fringes of life and had flirted with death before, but I still find it very hard to wrap my head around the fact that he’s gone.

Grief has taken over my life again, even stronger than before.

If you’re the praying kind, please pray for our family, especially my mom.