Trina Braxton Admits She Still ‘Bursts Out in Tears’ 3 Years After Sister Traci’s Death at 50 (Exclusive)

Trina Braxton is keeping her sister Traci by her side.

Ahead ofThe Braxtons’ forthcoming season 2 premiere, Trina gave PEOPLE some insight into her healing journey following the death of her older sister Traci in 2022. As she and her sisters — Toni, Tamar and Towanda, along with mother Evelyn — prepare to share their lives on the small screen, Trina explains that it hasn’t been easy, and it has “nothing to do with the cameras.”

“It wasn’t easy because the element of our sister Traci was missing. And I’m not saying that all the life has gone, but she brought so much life. She brought so much, I call it ‘Traciness,’ to our sisterhood because she was always saying some wacky thing that no one understood but her. And then when she finally explained it, you’d be like, ‘That makes all the sense in the world,’ Trina, 50, says. “And it’s just that element of her is definitely missing.”

She adds, “I’m glad we can still forge on to do this because that’s definitely what she wanted us to do, but I don’t think she’d be happy about so much contention, but she’s definitely happy that we’ve continued on.”

Season 2 of The Braxtons comes a year after the first of the revival series kicked off on We TV, and over a decade since Braxton Family Values brought the sisters into the reality TV sphere.

But Trina and her sisters have found ways to keep the memory of Traci present in their lives after her death at age 50 from esophageal cancer. As the Braxtons previously revealed, they each own a matching silver hummingbird locket containing Traci’s ashes, which Trina shows off as a necklace during her Zoom call with PEOPLE.

“She’s always a part of it. She’s always going to be there,” Trina says of filming season 2. “As a matter of fact, we have these necklaces. Traci loved hummingbirds. And she had tattoos of five hummingbirds on her back, and that represented each one of us.”

“Everywhere I go, there she is,” she says.

As for how Trina has been doing, she admits “some days are better than others.”

“There are times when somebody will talk about her and I burst out in tears. And then there are other times when we’ll talk about her and we burst out in laughter and joy, just remembering those wonderful times,” Trina says of Traci. “It’s a daily journey. And whoever said time heals all wounds, they lied.”

The next iteration of The Braxtons follows the musical family as they continue to navigate loss, embark on new careers and life milestones and hold nothing back in the process. Season 2 features glimpses of weddings, medical emergencies and a new chapter for Trina, who teases the episodes with three words: “Life, love and sisterhood.”

“If I decide to tell my story, I’m going to tell it with all the truth in me that I have. If I’m wrong, I’m going to say that I’m wrong. If I’m right and I am emphatic about being right, that’s it and that’s all and that’s the end of the story,” she says while teasing the season. “But if the other person feels that way too, we’ve reached an impasse. Where do we go from here?”

“You have to be transparent. I believe in being transparent with all my feelings and everything that I have to say, because guess what? At the end of the day, when you know you’re telling the truth, not your truth, no one can say anything afterward.”

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The second season of The Braxtons premieres on We TV on Friday, Oct. 10 at 8pm ET. The series can also be streamed on ALLBLK and AMC+.