Losing James Gaining an Angel : A Siblings Perspective to Addiction

You get the phone call that your sibling has passed away. Your life changes forever in an instant. As the sibling of an addict you have imagined this phone call, this very moment, so many times but it still manages to completely catch you off guard. What comes next is a series of moments leading up to the funeral all while walking through a fog of grief and shock. The author shares her experiences of those first few weeks after losing her brother to an accidental overdose up through the first year. She is raw and vulnerable in her writing and makes you feel like you are talking to a friend. From the overload of casseroles that are dropped off by neighbors, to looking through a lifetime of pictures and the memories that come along with it. Writing the eulogy and realizing just how complicated your feelings are and finally trying to get back to “normal” whatever that means now. The author openly shares the complexity of her emotions and stages of grief, the brain fog, and the difficulty of getting anything done. She shares how she is working through closure and anger, as well as a new captured understanding of the importance of living in the moment and embracing the fragility of life.