This is my brother, Kevin, and me. Kevin has had an incredibly difficult life--he was born missing fingers & toes and with no tear ducts; he had a really sever cleft palate that caused him all sorts of problems communicating; and he's had all sorts of problems with his skeletal growth so he was constantly in the hospital for surgeries when he was little, and he has no permanent teeth. Kevin has an IQ of around 60. And he was unlucky enough to be born to a useless father and a neglectful, abusive mother. From the time I was about 6 years old, I was the one who was responsible for raising him. I did my best, but I was a little kid, with my own problems, and I didn't know how to raise anyone else, let alone someone with as many troubles as Kevin had.

I've saved my brother so many times. I've gotten him out of jail. I've gotten him out of psychiatric hospitals. On various occasions, I've hunted through homeless shelters all over the state of Florida to find him. For a stretch when he was 18 and I was just barely keeping myself off the streets, I paid our father a hundred dollars a month to let Kevin live with him.

I found out a few weeks ago, that Kevin has been diagnosed with cancer, which is why I haven't been around very much this month. I spent the last week in Florida visiting with him and meeting with his social workers and his oncologist.

He has stage 4 lung cancer--his oncologist says it's the worst case of lung cancer she's seen in someone so young--and they're guessing he has a month or two, at most, to live.