VIDEO | Kenny Florian explains ‘most difficult year of his life’ with the loss of his brother Kirk Florian

Very sad news came was revealed with the passing of a member of the MMA community in September.

Kirk Florian, who was the younger brother of the former title contender, current UFC analyst and commentator, Kenny Florian, passed away at the age of 33 on September 11.

On Monday, Kenny was a guest on the MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani and spoke about the tragic loss on air.

“It’s been the most difficult year of my life,” Florian told Helwani when asked about how he would describe 2016 (starting at 2:43:01 of the video above) “For sure. It’s been tough man. It has been very tough.

“Losing my brother was something that none of us expected. My brother Kirk, my youngest brother. Yes, actually September 11th he died.”

Helwani asked if Florian could say what had happened and Florian stated, “He took his own life. It was something that was the biggest shot that I had ever taken in my life. He was a kid who was always smiling, the sweetest Florian, for sure. So smart, so talented and always smiling. And thats the thing that kind of thing that throws you off.

“Sometimes you know, with certain family members you might see some tell tale signs. Perhaps they’re not happy, they’re depressed and those were things that were not really evident in hanging out with Kirk. Or certainly, he masked it. So, nothing that we really could see and it is just extremely difficult for myself and my family and it still hits me.

“It’s one of those things where I’m sure it will for a very long time but I was probably balling my eyes out a few days ago. I recently got back on Facebook after about three or four years layoff and I saw all these messages from people and people sent me pictures of when he had one of his MMA fights and I was cornering him. You just start to remember and it starts to hit you, my brother isn’t here and he’s not gonna see my family when I have one. He’s not around. I can’t call him. I can’t joke around, we can’t send funny memes to each other over the phone. We can’t talk fights anymore. It’s a hard thing to take.”

Kenny had one positive takeaway from the unfortunate situation and it is definitely something the world could use much more of.

“When I’m looking at the positives of what happened, I try to look at my own life and first of all value it and value the time with loved ones and friends and it gets you to be way more empathetic and to understand that a lot of people are dealing with a lot of different things and we should be kind to every single person that we meet. We don’t know what they are going through and you want to live your life as authentic as possible and really value every second, every moment that you can.”

Some very noble words and advice to take from Kenny Florian as he, his family, and friends still deal with the heartache of losing a loved one.

BJPenn.com sends our deepest condolences and wish the best to the family and friends of the late Kirk Florian.