Oh friend. This guilt that you’ve been carrying with you since the disappearance of your brother is so very desp, so very consuming. You’ve had to compose with such a brutal, sudden loss in your life, and it is completely understandable that all of these questions, all of these feelings keep haunting you. I hear so much this cry from your heart and how much losing him has felt like pure agony. I lost my big brother 5 years ago to a disease that took him away quite suddenly. I never thought losing one of my siblings would be a part of my own journey - no one is prepared for that kind of loss. It feels so unnatural, so unfair, it goes against everything you’ve been projecting as you grew up - to get older together, to see each other having families, flourishing, exploring life itself. And suddenly one’s trajectory has been stopped when you are left here, expected to keep moving forward, while your heart craves for holding his hand even just once again. It feels like to keep moving on in life is forbidden - because why would our life keep going when they don’t get that chance anymore? Why them and not us? Based on what criteria? These questions are so painful, and it makes sense for your mind to try to find answers even when they are objectively unfair for you. For what it’s worth, I feel these questions with you. The heaviness of survivor’s guilt, the silent answers to the question “why?”… It’s heartbreaking.
Somehow, it may be possible to find comfort progressively in trying to live our best life to honor them. To not let this guilt win. There are days when this intense guilt that you describe is going to hit harder. But it’s also okay to try to remind yourself as much as possible how your brother would want you to live, how much goodness he would wish for you to have in this life. It’s hard because it feels like betraying him very often… It feels like the more you choose to embrace life, the more you may distance yourself from him. But somehow, there is potential for it to be the opposite. To find him again through life itself, by living the best life you can. We may not ever find any answer to “why”, but we can keep honoring them, and honoring their love. Carrying on their legacy, their voice, their story. By not letting the guilt consuming you to the point of shutting down on life itself, you will allow yourself to grow as he wished you did. You will be able to share his voice and tell his nephew how much of a beautiful person he was. You will be able to support his wife and remind her how much of a good mother she is, and that she is not alone. You will be able to become the person you aspire to be, and you will keep making him proud that way.
There is nothing about who you are that will ever make you less worthy of existing than him. Because it’s not about worth. It’s not about deserving. Even if it fucking hurts to admit it. It’s about things that we don’t have control of, and that are objectively unfair to our heart.
You are not at fault for being alive while your brother isn’t. You have breath in your lungs and that is such a strong, strong power my friend. I know how much it feels like an unwanted burden, a poisoned gift, something that you’d wish trade against his life if that was possible. But you have so much more to give into this world, and in this very life. So much LOVE to share and to receiv, still- and a huge part of it has been directly inspired by your brother, by who he was. He keeps existing through it, through you.
Sending hugs your way. 
