Well, because I really like reading others' posts and I look for them, I should try to return the favor and post like Jon urges. (Actually my writing a post is not really doing anyone a favor. I'm like Debbie Downer.)

It's hard, though. I haven't been doing well at all. And the internet is a public forum, not the place I will be treating and bandaging most of my injuries. But a few things I'll say. Since my little brother's suicide I've found it takes a lot of will just to continue living, and too many days mine isn't there. If my soft-hearted, shy, awkward, sensitive, brilliant, sweet brother found this world too awful for him, why on earth do I want to be here? That's the kind of thing I've asked myself a lot over the past 6 months.

Of course, I am okay to the point that I'll give it some time to answer that question. But life has to be something entirely different now.

And I'll say something about mental illness.

It is possible to become mentally ill even in the prime of your life, when you've been living rationally, logically and having a successful career... and then having a psychotic break in which you hear voices and have irrational thoughts. We suspect my brother's sleep apnea, which was severe and had gone on for years, is connected to this.

It's really, really bad that people are so ashamed of mental illness. And my brother in particular. His wonderful brain betraying him like that when it had always before been what took him into some exclusive fields of study, prestigious schools, and fascinating work.

People who get mental illnesses need far more respect. I'm pretty skeptical myself of the various and very popular pharma that's presribed by doctors who don't have the background to monitor such drugs adequately. And that is often all they get: some pills.

That's enough for now. There's a TV show that just began, called Mental, and I like it so far. The head of this mental hospital fights in offbeat ways for the rights of the patients.

Other things that I like? Seeing movies with Robin Williams in them. Because Michael looked like a cross between Robin Williams and Ted Forrest, a famous poker player. I saw Bicentennial Man the other day.

And I like looking for frames for some of the photos of Michael running the LA Marathon. He ran at least one marathon each year for about the last 19 years. We have piles of medallions, posters, shirts, and stuff from them. We found his bib number from the 2008 race and ordered a bunch of pictures. I love these photos. He's kind of out of shape in them; very pale although he lived for years in Arizona, and in at least one post-race pic, he is smiling --and he looks so very much like me. And an awful lot like my youngest sister too. We're the fairer ones of the bunch.

It is very moving when I look at one sister or other, and suddenly her lips are my mother's; or the sound of my own voice is not mine, it sounds more like my oldest sister. While I have 5 siblings alive still, I have no children; these are the people I am closest to in blood and feeling and so of course they are the last people I will see that likeness with. There is no future, only the past of us. The things I do now must have some meaning, or they aren't worth doing.