I lost my brother today

[jaydar]

I am so very sorry for your loss. He will be in my prayers tonight.

Joe.

[Trucker_tim]

Sorry to hear thoughts and prayers as well

[Metalmad]

My condolences to you & your family

[lordairgtar]

My condolences and deepest sympathy to you.

[charlie8575]

Been a tough couple of weeks around here I've seen.

Kevin, there is no easy way to deal with this, other than dealing with it head-on. While it will be very difficult and painful, you and your family will be the stronger for it in the long run.

Remember the good things, forgive those that weren't, and always cherish the memories.

Having no siblings myself and a very small extended family, while I cannot truly appreciate the agony you're going through, I can and do understand it.

You have all our support, and we are all here for you, as you have been for those who have endured difficulties and to cheer on our successes and discoveries. We now stand to render assistance to you.

May God grant you and your family peace during this time of loss.

Charlie Larkin

[Porscheman]

You and your family will be in our thoughts and prayers.

[TOYCARTEC]

My condolences to you and your family.

[MAGNUM4342]

I want to start by thanking everyone for thier support. After the past two weeks I needed to see all this support. The following is an edited copy of what i've been through, pasted from my own site so as to avoid having to write it a dozen times.

I'm back

...and I have been through a ringer.

Allow me to start by saying sometimes clarity doesn't come until the initial shock fades. With that said I misunderstood. He was not hit by a cement mixer as I previously thought. He was struck by an F-150 with a portable mixer in it's bed. Sadly my family is a bit of a mess from before this so misinformation from multiple sources was bound to happen. I should have kept that to myself until I knew all the facts.

There were seven of us kids in the family. Three boys and four girls. Our youngest brother, who has had almost zero to do with the family since we found him (adoption is a bear!) never even showed up. That was the first thing that upset me and my depression was already getting the better of me. My sisters, instead of having a normal service and connecting with everyone as I had hoped, was not going to happen since they were more interested in staying in the reception room and arguing over who was getting what from his things. REALLY!? He litterally was not even in the ground yet! They found out the hard way they got nothing anyway.

The seven of us at one time were all adopted out. Three of the girls were adopted by different relatives and grew up across the street from each other being told they were cousins. This obviously made them bitter beyond belief. Any two of us could get along at any given time, but add a third or fourth and it always ended up with shouting and epithets. Why I thought any of them could get along long enough to get through one of our funerals is beyond me, but i'm the hopefull type. When we all had our big reunion back around 2001, alot of pretty speeches were made about, "we all grew up different", "we all have to get used to and accept each other"...that kind of stuff. Let me tell you, you can't BUY that brand of fertilizer! So after trying unsuccesfully to get them together and be a family for over a decade, I gave up. Why tell you all this? Because of what happened next.

I was so incensed with them that the moment the funeral was over, I laid into the four of them, letting them know what kind of insensitive, sociopathic harpies they were. My blood pressure shot to the sky, and I blacked out. I awoke in the hospital with an assortment of tubes and wires in me and although stress from the situation was the cause, they decided to stress me out more by telling me right away, "You've had a cardiac incident." An "incident?" What the heck does THAT mean? They explained I would be okay and asked if my family could come in to see me. Like an idiot I said yes. Two minutes. That's all it took for them to start arguing again, right there in my hospital room!

So, rather than just my older brother, I lost my entire natural family this week. I told them that if they couldn't get along after PUTTING ME in the hospital during our brother's funeral, it would never happen. I lived many years without knowing they existed and I hope to live many more after, so I have washed my hands of them. I now have to try and reduce my cholesterol and i'm taking blood pressure pills so once again I find myself recuperating.

Alot of guys have been waiting for stuff and i'm sorry this has happened. I will be getting stuff together and shipping out as I can in the next few days.

Thanks to all for your kind words and patience. I just want to get back to my miniature world.

I know I am usually the bigger proponent of family and family values and i'm reaching the age where I probably shouldn't go around alienating the family I have left, but when there's nowhere else to go, and your healthbecomes an issue what do you do? Please don't think too terribly bad of me for turning my back on them. Believe me, they deserve it. The only one of them who didn't, is gone now.

[MAGNUM4342]

Additional- Thank you to all my friends who responded in P.M. as well.

[Quick GMC]

I feel I'm fortunate to have realized at an early age to avoid this type of drama and stay away from certain people, including family members. I'm not very articulate with words, so I apologize if I sound a bit crass. I guess what I'm saying is people don't REALLY change in their adult life. Beggars will remain, thieves will always recognize an opportunity and people just are who they are. You can exhaust so much emotional energy trying to please people and mediate situations that the one that suffers is yourself. It's hard to turn and walk away from family and friends, but sometimes it's the best thing you can do, health and emotional wise.

My condolences for you loss, I hope you are able to recover quickly. It's not an easy thing to deal with.

[MAGNUM4342]

You can exhaust so much emotional energy trying to please people and mediate situations that the one that suffers is yourself. It's hard to turn and walk away from family and friends, but sometimes it's the best thing you can do, health and emotional wise.

My condolences for you loss, I hope you are able to recover quickly. It's not an easy thing to deal with.

Sage words indeed friend. Sometimes you can love a person with all your heart but eventually realise they are no good for you. As long as I cut out cooking nearly everything with bacon grease I should heal up fine. Unfortunately I learned to cook with bacon grease from my mom...who has had two heart attacks and four bypasses. I guess that was a pretty big hint huh?