Monday night My Husband got an awful call from his best friend; “My brother’s dead!”. Hubby dropped his Xbox controller grabbed his coat and frantically walked down the hallway. I heard him from the other room, luckily I hadn’t gone to bed as I told him I would. “Gotta go to R! Eric is dead!” “Honey, slow down. Talk to me!” I insisted. What started as a bad Monday turned out worse. Our best man/daughter’s Godfather just lost his brother to addiction. It had been a fight for Eric, but his fight was lost. The next few hours/days have been surreal and heart ache. We’ve been closer to R then we ever have and he has been close for years. One or both of us have been attached to him every hour yesterday and some today. Eric was a wonderful guy. Like R is family to us, Eric also was family. It’s so hard to watch R hurt. To watch his mom and dad try to be themselves but hold back their real feelings. To hold back our own because we aren’t as effected as R is. To hold our Daughter closer because Eric leaves behind 3 children and we can’t imagine GD behind because of selfish reasons. To hold our loved/stong willed siblings closer even more because our best friend is now an only child. Honey and I try to relate but subtly because our feelings shall not be projected on R. A big F you to heroin. Another thing that my husband and I cannot relate to because we’ve never done it. We could never ever do that to ourselves or the people we love. While we deal with our emotions also cast them aside to help R, We our finding ourselves saying we have to do better for our baby and ourselves. Terrible that our loved one’s loss is a new wake up for us as well. Wonderful and terrible that R finds out how very loved his family and him are by losing his brother. Staying positive is something he is doing well And I am so proud of him. RIP Eric, your battle is now over.