I am blessed. The beauty of my life has always existed in stark contrast to my brother’s. For every day I lived well, he spent hollow hours scraping and struggling with mental illness taunting him, teasing him and dangling him on the edge of life and death.

Getting high got him out of this world. Out of this existence, if only for a while. I can’t even fathom his personal pain. I would never have been so strong. I never would have engaged in such a fierce battle. I would have succumbed long ago. It is easier to die than live. Don’t let anyone fool you otherwise.

On better days we’d talk about why he survived. I told him the universe had great plans for him. Plans he had yet to achieve. There was greatness in his future. Why else would he live through a 27-year heroin addiction when so many of those closest to him were taken? There had to be a reason. Turns out, there wasn’t. Fortuna spins her own web and fashions it to her fancy.

Last week, a petty man, a coward with a 38-special, shot my brother in the chest. The little man claimed self-defense. Supposedly he was looking for his girlfriend who just broke up with him. My brother just happened to be in the wrong place – at home, a place where the little coward’s girlfriend was not. The bullet lodged in my brother’s front door after it ripped through him. The little man didn’t just take one life; he took his own as well. No wonder she broke up with this loser. Was he going to try to woo her back with a gun? The hallowed halls of justice are charged with figuring it all out.

When my brother would say no one cared about him, I always reminded him that I did. My brother’s suffering is over. Mine continues. Aren’t I lucky to be so blessed?