hello thx also. My brother Billy was murdered last year august 28. , 2004 he was 32 and now i am 32 and i am a male. He was and is my very best friend. I miss him dearly so.His murderer was in the hospital also. It really suxs that your life can be changed and ruined in a way non fixable because of someone else. I find myself crying sometimes when alone so nobody really sees my actual pain. My brother and i were so close vvery close.Somedays can be better than others but it is horrible. Any advice. I do see a counselor now and i might take lexapro an antidepressant.. any suggestions from someone whos been thru something similar........

thanks Diane for your suggestions.! I am very sorry for your loss that is very scary and sad at the same time i think that is murder also actually it is murder! I am so sorry again! My counselor told me to write a journal but i have a journal and very good memory. This sunday is one yr his death it sucks. I miss my brother so much! Diane take care and i hope your grief gets better but it seems to be here for me as it comes and goes. bye Brandon

how old would rob have been? my brother would now be 33..did he take extasy?did they find who killed your fiance?sorry again

I'm very sorry to hear of your loss. I too had such a loss when my wife was killed by her mentally ill brother in 1992. It destroyed my family and hopes for the future. They say when you lose a child you lose the future, when you lose a spouse, the present and when you lose a parent you lose the past.

[As I'm writing this I'm having telrrible back and side pain but I'm trying to work and having a difficult time today...so please excuse my writing]. What I found that worked for me and how I've healed in the last 12 years is the following.

1) Seek a grief group right away and share your loss and feelings. It really helped me to take long walks in the desert and scream at the top of my lungs almost daily when needed. As a male, we often bottle emotions and it helped me to schedule these screaming sessions on my long walks.

2) Be sure you kow your boundaries and share with those you trust who can help. Mine made it to newspapers where I lived so everyone knew about it at work and even my neighbors. I often felt awfull bringing it up, but it did help to talk to friends. Some became distant and I lost their friendship, some trully cared and were true friends. Others didn't really care. I found by helping others I also helped myself. Eventually I moved to get away from all the memories to a certain extent. Good and Bad ones.

3) You will go thru many stages in grief: Anger, Resentment, Enlightenment, and even forgiveness if you chose to. I forgave her brother by writing him a letter while he was in prison. I get yearly updates and still dread reading his latest psychiactric charts every year, because it makes me relive to a certain extent my trauma over the whole thing. My wife's mom and dad have all passed on now and her only relatives are quite emotionally distant, so I grieve alone now after more than a decade. To each his own ..even in grief I've found. Do what works best for you. Fond memories of my wife always made me feel better and I cherish them still.

4) Exercise to help yourself feel better if you need to. Listen to lots of music that makes you feel happy and uplifted.

5) Read lots of grief books, they helped me see my way through tough times when friends and family weren't there 100%.

6) This is now a part of your life story, family history and legacy to your beloved brother. It helped me to be conscious of this fact in how I remembered my wife, always trying to keep a balanced view on the whole incident. For instance, I've since remarried and now have two wonderfull children. So looking at them and the love in their eyes I see how God has a plan for each of us and we really don't know why things happen like they do.
Oh we really think we do, but we really don't I've found. Everything, good and bad in this life is there for a reason. My favorite song to remind me of this fact is by Alison Krauss : "There is a Reason"

:)

thx alot nice to feel good i really appreciate it your kind words can go a long way. it is hard and i do go thru all the stages of grief one thing is i will and cannot forgive the monster who took my brothers life and he is getting away w/it pretty easy in a mental hospital which shows there is no justice here on this planet.i am very very sorry about your previous wife that is a very sad story.i want to say thxs so thank you very much.

brandon

hi im so sorry 2 hear of your loss's. i too feel like ,my brother was murdered this year on march 8th.
we lost my dad last may to liver cancer, aged only 66yrs. my brother who was only 37yrs ( 1 yr older than me), had lost a lot of weight ( due to stress) of losing my dad i think we only found out after my dad died that he had cancer so that was quite a shock. anyway my brother had lost weight so he''d been having tests done, he had a liver biopsy at the end of february, 10 days later he collapsed in his car with his wife + 8 yr old daughter, rushed 2 hospital had 40 pints of blood in 24hrs because he was internally bleeding.basically when he had the biopsy they had cut a main artery in his liver + hed been internally bleeding for 10 days without knowing.
he lived another 10 days solely on life support then 6 major organs failed, the hospital turned the machines off.
he never smoked, drunk, or abuse his body. he was an active fit young man. as if losing my dad wasnt bad enough 10 montys later i lost my brother aswell.
to me the hospital killed him. we are awaiting an inquest at the minute, not that i believe the outcome of that could make me feel any better though

but again deepest sympathys to you both