‘Little People, Big World’: Details of Isabel Roloff’s Brother’s Tragic Death Surface

Isabel Roloff, the wife of former Little People, Big World star Jacob Roloff, opened up about the impact her brother Tomas Garreton’s tragic death, almost eight years later. Garretson died at age 25 after falling from a freight train on Sept. 3, 2012. Roloff’s mother died two years after her brother, following a battle with breast cancer.

Garreton died after he fell from a freight train during a trip between Philadelphia and Baltimore, The Park Record reported at the time. He was the lead singer for the band Profane Sass. His mother Toni Garretson told the outlet he was an “extraordinary person” who “really found his voice when he started singing.” She said Garreton rode on trains for years. “He lived the life he chose and he loved the life he lived,” she explained.

On Thursday, Roloff shared an old black and white photo of herself hugging Garretson, along with an emotional caption. She wrote that while she is “good at pretending” she is ok, she is not. “And only a few people in my life right now know how deeply I am not,” she wrote in the post, reports The Sun. “Pretending became easier than showing others how broken I was when my brother passed away eight years ago and everyone else around me, understandably, fell apart.”

Roloff wrote that the “light of our lives” was “ripped” form her family. While those around her struggled, she tried to hold it together because she “didn’t see a choice,” she wrote. “I made big decisions for the family, I answered the door every time, I went to school. I pretended.” Now though, she is done pretending that the deaths of her brother and mother have “not effected my mental health greatly.”

Even today, she is still “paying” a price, as she battles both anxiety and depression. “I have finally made the steps to see a therapist, after all this time, to let down those walls and finally admit to somebody, ‘I am not okay,’” she wrote. “A lot of people see me as strong. And maybe I am to some degree. But I’m also just really good at pretending. And I don’t want to be anymore.”

When Roloff and Jacob married in September 2019 at the Roloff family farm in Oregon, she felt her deceased loved ones were there in spirit. “Many people asked me if I was sad that both my mother and brother couldn’t be there with us on our day, but the thing is, I know they were there,” Roloff wrote in a now-deleted post, reports InTouch Weekly. “If there is one thing I know about loss and death it is that it is not the end. I have held strong to the faith that I will see my loved ones again.”