Allison Rhodes

School social worker

Hi I am Allison Rhodes and my older brother, Kyle, passed away in 2015. He was only 27 years old. He was my only sibling. Kyle was never able to get married or have kids. I remember thinking that I would never be an aunt. That he would never watch me get married or have kids. Kyle loved sports and did radio announcing for Murray State University. He worked for a moonshine distillery in Kentucky and there was an explosion. He was in the hospital for almost two weeks until the infection took over his body. I had to watch him slowly die. I was in college at the time and had to drive two hours back and forth to finish finals. I was the one that held it together for the family. We also had a family friend that was in the explosion that did survive. It was a very public accident and the local news covered it. Even the show Moonshiners covered the story. It made it really hard when literally everyone knew about it. There were so many people at his funeral. I stayed strong the whole time. We also had to go through court proceedings because of the malfunction of the still. I had to testify in the court about my brother’s death. I was still living at home at the time so I watched my parents grieved differently. My mom wanted to talk about my brother and my dad did not. Luckily, I had a friend that lost her brother just a few months before mine passed that helped me get through it. We eventually created a support group in our town for young adults that lost a sibling. We started a Facebook group too. Four years later, my parents got divorced. My father had an affair with another woman for 6 months and left to be with her. I felt so alone because my brother wasn’t there. It felt like when he passed away. I wondered what he would think of everything and what he would do. I also got married and it was bittersweet without him there. We made sure he was known with an empty seat with a picture of him. We also created a signature drink with his moonshine. It really helped me remember he was still with me by honoring him. That is a very short version and there is so much more I could share. I am a social worker at a school and try everyday to help students. I am in the process of trying to start a support group at the schools that I work at to help students that have lost. My brother has made me a better social worker and a better person. I do have a Tik-Tok video that has 199K views for when my then fiancé went to my brother’s gravesite and asked permission to marry me. It went the world to me that he did that. Please let me know if you have any more questions!