David Jacobson, foreground, his twin, Brian, in the center, and his older brother, Ben, in the background, at the zoo on the Ivory Coast, West Africa. (Courtesy of David Jacobson)

His brother’s untimely death led him to design a life with meaning

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Editor’s note: This blog is part of a series of first person essays about identity written by UTEP honors students during the spring 2013 semester. EL PASO – “He just died.” That’s how I heard that my older brother was dead. He had developed pancreatic Cancer at 31 years old, and had been deteriorating ever since. The doctors had told us that everyone who lived two years after diagnosis never had a reoccurrence for the rest of their lives. That was encouraging news, until we found out that the survival rate is four percent.