My oldest brother committed suicide on January 14th, 2025, only a few weeks ago. We had just placed my mom in hospice after Christmas. When dad called me, he was crying. I was prepared to hear that mom had passed, not that my brother had committed suicide. When I heard that, it felt like someone ripped my heart out of my chest, threw it on the ground, and smashed it with a sledgehammer. My brother had been having some health issues since the summer. He said the doctors didn’t know what was wrong. That wasn’t the truth. I found a blood test result ftom October in his medical paperwork. He had been diagnosed with blood cancer, and it had gotten into his liver. He didn’t tell anyone, not even his best friend. It breaks my heart that he chose to keep it a secret, to go through it all alone.