One Direction star Liam Payne tragically passed and his sister Ruth Gibbins posted a public message declaring she's been "gasping for air" at the thought of never seeing him again. Liam's heartbroken sister admitted she couldn't process the "finality" of his death aged just 31, and that instead of living, she now merely "exists".

Candidly sharing the reality of grief, Ruth confirmed she's been pasting a smile on her face, but that the effort of maintaining normality is "exhausting" in a candid post shared on Wednesday. As the eldest child in the family, she'd never expected her younger sibling to lose his life before her - and she laid her feelings bare in a no-holds-barred Instagram post. "Six months, half a year without you?!" she quizzed.

"My head is still screaming for you. Each morning on waking, I feel like I am plunged underwater, gasping for air that never comes to relieve me. Living without you is impossible, so for now, I exist," she wrote.

"I'm learning to laugh or smile in the right places, but mate, it's exhausting when all I want to do is speak to you."

"In the few moments I allow myself to feel love and not just loss, I can really smile at memories of us, like last year when we were doubled over laughing at us trying to make something we'd seen on YouTube, but memories are always tinged with sadness at how unfair it is we can't make new ones," she lamented.

Ruth now imagines her brother "laughing" at her for walking around like Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, hoping to catch a glimpse of him from beyond the grave so he can set her on "the right path".

She sadly concluded: "I miss you loudly, quietly and in all the moments inbetween. Love you so much more than these words or my tears are capable of expressing, but I know you know this.

"For now, I'll meet you in my dreams."

Liam was just a teenager when he was plunged to fame on the X Factor, thanks to Simon Cowell, and he went on to sell millions of record with One Direction.

Medical reports about the tragic accident suggest that Liam could have been semi-conscious at the time that he fell while the cause of death was recorded as "multiple traumas" and "internal and external haemorrhage".