I thought about all the love we have inside us and how only a shred of that reaches the people we care about.

My brother believed that all misery began with hope. Or maybe not all misery, he said, but certainly a lot of it. You shouldn't believe that things will get better. As a child you have to make do with what you have, parents who are never around and a sister that is always there, whining.

My brother's life was a series of poor Survivor decisions but the stupidest thing he did was break his alliance with the only other contestant he could trust, the one who would have given him her last grains of rice, who would have carried him on her back to the finish line if it came to that.