Trying to not run from emotions

I can count the number of times that I've cried i my life (since my mom died when I was 14), I mean really cried, on one hand. Maybe one and a half. To say that I had walled off my emotions was an understatement. I am the tough one. The clinical one, the one to take care of business. I couldn't get everyone taken care of and all the "business" of everything done if I spent my time crying.

And now, at 38, well, almost 39, there's been a shift. Tears flow every time I talk to my brother. I don't hide them, they just come, and I talk to him through them. I feel so much pain for him. I'm trying to figure out how this emotion fits into my life though. It's so foreign. I'll get there.

My brother has had some help from his kids' school. They have connections at a bank there and they know of a home loan with a very low interest rate for single parents. He is working on pursuing that, as he really needs to get out of where they are living now... out of the home his wife died in.

I'm searching my soul. Trying to figure out if I am meant to help him to get a down payment on this new home, or Christmas for the kids. I could use all the input out there on this one...