Cindy Crawford opens up about the family tragedy that robbed her of her 3-yr-old brother.

Cindy shares the story of her family tragedy.

The terminal illness and death of a much-loved younger sibling seems far removed from the glamourous life of a supermodel.

But it’s what Cindy Crawford and her family went through when Jeff, the youngest child of the family and only boy, died at age three.

In a video for Oprah’s Master Class, Cindy says her brother was diagnosed with leukemia when he was two years old. Cindy was eight.

“I think when my parents first told us that my brother was sick, we didn’t really understand what it meant,” she says.

“They didn’t use the word ‘cancer.’”

During tumultuous times of remission and illness, the family would travel to a hospital two hours from their home daily so Jeff could undergo radiation therapy and take part in an experimental program.

Cindy says she didn’t really understand what was happening, but her young brother did.

“My mother said she found him sitting in his room,” she says.

“He was sitting at his little table, and she said, ‘What are you doing?’ And he said, ‘I’m praying.’ And she said, ‘What are you praying about?’ He said, ‘So that when I die, you’ll be OK.’”

“As a mom now, I can’t imagine hearing your child say that.”

Before a Christmas break, three-year-old Jeff told doctors he wasn’t coming back for treatments. Cindy says the doctors pretended to agree with the three-year-old while telling her mother they’d see him soon.

“And the day that he was supposed to go back to the hospital, that’s the day he died,” she says.

“There’s some sense of completeness and peace that comes with knowing he knew that and he decided he was done fighting.”

Watch the former supermodel tell her heartbreaking family story here:

Watch the video:

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