Hi.
We lost my brother in 2008 to advanced coronary artery disease. He was in his thirties, so none of us were expecting it at all.

We have a very odd family dynamic. My parents divorced when my siblings and I were young, and my brother who passed away was an attention seeker/black sheep of the family in his youth, dropped out of high school, experimented with drugs, stole from us, and had several children with multiple moms, etc. He ran away when we were younger, and after he came back, my mother had him live with our dad in another state instead of accepting him back into our home. He had a rocky life, but really started turning things around as an adult, worked hard to take care of his multiple kids and I was proud of him as an adult.

He was just getting to a good place in his life when he died, but failed to make out a will which has caused a large mess. My parents are handling things differently. My mother has fallen apart, is consumed with grief, and is very negative. My Dad is the exec of his estate, took the children who were living with my brother (several of the moms were not fit to be mothers according to the court) in to his home, and is fighting with my brother's most current ex wife (divorced before he died) for my brother's life insurance money. She is the mother of his only son, and in my father's anger, he is not allowing this little boy to see his sisters anymore, who are currently residing in his house. It is so unfair. :(

What a mess.

We are all handling the grief and shock in different ways. My mother wears a necklace with his thumbprint on it, and sends flowers to his grave every month on the day of his death and asks for a picture of the grave with the flowers on it and keeps it in a collection on her computer. My father has wrapped himself up in handling the estate and seems to be taking his anger out on the ex-wife who won the insurance money.

My brothers and I talk about the good times and bad times we had with our brother and sometimes we laugh, and sometimes we cry. My mother bought all of us the same necklace that she got herself of my brother's thumb print on it and is upset that we aren't wearing it everyday like she does. She is also really upset that we aren't all visiting the grave all the time and accuses us of forgetting him. It is hard to deal with.
She has also turned my black-sheep brother into a saint, and told me after the funeral that he was always her "wild child" while I was her "angry child". She praises my oldest brother who was closest to my brother who passed away because he has marked out the day of the month that my brother died (every month) and seems to be having the hardest time coping.

I find myself feeling resentful and feel guilty about it. My brother who passed away was always the one who got the most attention and we all had to change our lives around to help him out a lot. I remember having to watch his kids on my 16th birthday, instead of having a sweet 16 party because he went missing and nobody else was around. It made me feel less important. He read my diary and stole from my piggy bank, and once when he was on drugs he tried to molest me in my own bed. We had to move multiple times to help keep him from getting into trouble, and I'd lose dear friends and deal with being the new kid at many schools. I both loved and hated my brother when we were kids. Moving around disrupted my education, etc. I guess I have always harbored some resentments, and let them go as an adult because I saw that he was trying really hard to turn his life around, and I forgave him for the stuff he did while young and on drugs. We didn't have a close relationship as adults, but I still loved him and am sad that he passed away.

How is your family coping with the loss? I hope everyone is doing better than we are. This really seems to have shaken our whole extended family to the core.

Thanks for listening,
Hannah