How Sister Wives Dealt with Garrison’s Suicide In Heartbreaking, Emotionally Uncooked Episode

Sunday’s new hour of Sister Wives was a troublesome watch, because the Brown household realized the surprising information that considered one of their very own, Kody and Janelle Brown’s 25-year-old son Garrison Brown, took his personal life.

The emotional blow to the household got here a few quarter into the episode, as Meri Brown — considered one of Kody’s ex-wives — sat down for a confessional interview with producers. As she was about to start out answering questions on one other matter, she began getting cellphone calls from Kody, who was ignoring her texts to speak later. Lastly, he mentioned it was an emergency, earlier than she picked up the decision and appeared shocked.

The digicam then lower, earlier than a slate introduced Garrison’s dying.

“He instructed me the phrases that I am going to always remember. He goes, ‘Garrison took his life.’ And it was similar to this bizarre, bizarre, surreal second,” Meri mentioned in a later confessional. “Not considered one of our youngsters. They are not gonna try this. I left and went up there to Kody and Robyn’s home.”

Garrison, the son of Kody and ex-wife Janelle, was discovered useless at his Flagstaff, Arizona residence by brother Gabriel on March 5, 2024. He died by suicide.

The remainder of the episode confirmed the household grapple with the information, primarily in confessionals through which they detailed how they discovered about his dying and the aftermath.

Kody and Garrison had been nonetheless considerably estranged earlier than his dying, it appears, following a shifting household dynamic over COVID. Kody felt among the children — particularly his sons with Janelle, Garrison included — weren’t respecting his COVID protocols and had been prioritizing their social lives over security; they, nonetheless, felt he was prioritizing his household with spouse Robyn over everybody else.

Within the episode, Kody made it clear that not having the ability to totally mend issues earlier than Garrison’s dying was taking its toll on him.

“Grief is available in waves. It simply wasn’t imagined to be this manner. It is simply heartbreaking and I do not … I did not get an opportunity to actually make issues proper,” he mentioned in a dialog along with his spouse. “Simply not having the ability to say goodbye. Simply do not know what to do along with his dying as a result of it is like I’ve received to do one thing completely different as a result of I might have had extra time with him and I assumed there could be extra time.”

He then began to undergo the various “what ifs” going by way of his thoughts.

“What if I would have known as him? What if I would have been in contact extra? What if we would have gone performed extra? What if? What if? What if? It nonetheless makes me surprise if one thing might have been performed,” he shared. “It makes me really feel linked to him to do the what ifs. It is simply heartbreaking.”

Getting visibly emotional, he questioned, “How am I going to do that? How do I do the remainder of my life with each vacation and each birthday. All of the frustration I had over stuff with COVID and all the things like that, swiftly, that is so unimportant. I am simply unhappy about what would have been.”

After he and Janelle determined to cremate Garrison, based mostly on his needs, and produce his stays to Wyoming to be buried close to different relations, Kody mentioned he appeared on the journey as a “pilgrimage” of kinds. “I simply wish to take his physique residence and put him within the floor,” he added.

Within the wake of Garrison’s dying, one other of Kody’s estranged youngsters, daughter Gwendylyn, apparently wanted to be along with her father.

“Gwendylyn known as me and mentioned might she come and see me. She known as me, brokenhearted, ‘Can I come over?’ and I am like, ‘Come on over sweetheart,'” he shared, including that the “first second grief actually clobbered me” occurred when the 2 had been holding fingers as soon as she confirmed as much as his residence.

“I really feel this grief come up out of me and all people’s silent. Gwendylyn’s sobbing, Robyn’s making an attempt to console her, this grief comes out of me and I wailed and that is after I grew to become actually conscious that this example has gone down and it is simply, it is type of unreconcilable,” he defined. “I do not know what to do, I am misplaced on this.”

Garrison’s mom, Janelle, mentioned she and her son had been texting one another all day earlier than his dying — one thing she mentioned was “common,” as they usually talked just a few instances every day.

“I knew he was struggling and I at all times simply picked up the cellphone and I at all times make it some extent to only discuss to him. And it wasn’t actually about something, I feel he wanted the connection,” she mentioned, including that she knew he was usually speaking along with his brothers as effectively.

The night time he died, she laid all the way down to go to mattress round 8:30pm and he “sort of stopped texting me.” She mentioned she knew he had began ingesting once more and would undergo durations of stopping and binging, so she reached out to son Logan and Christin’s son Hunter, asking them to additionally attain out to him. “They had been on it,” she recalled, saying she went to sleep, solely to be woken up by a name from son Gabriel — “and he is like, ‘Mother, he is gone,” she shared.

“He mentioned, ‘He is useless. He killed himself.’ I do not keep in mind the subsequent couple of minutes. I received within the automobile and drove,” she revealed.

Wanting again, Janelle mentioned that he “actually struggled” with alcohol lately, one thing he began to do throughout COVID. She mentioned the household provided him “all of the love, all of the help, all the assistance, all of the sources,” including, “I do not know what occurred that this night time he did that, as a result of he is had different nights like this the place he would drink after which move out and he would go sort of radio silent, however he’d be again within the morning.”

Janelle defined she was joyful she wasn’t residing in Flagstaff anymore and was joyful to be nearer to her children and grandchildren after a current transfer. Her youthful sister Carrie additionally got here to stick with her for some time, as viewers noticed a really uncooked and emotional dialog between the pair, who continued to interrupt into tears.

“He had anxiousness and despair. He began ingesting as a approach to soothe that after which it simply grew to become the animal he could not get ahold of,” Janelle instructed her sister. “We did all the things we might. And I do know that.”

She added that she was a bit “anxious” about Gabriel, who discovered Garrison’s physique, however mentioned that, due to counseling, he was already in a greater place that he had been “for a very long time” earlier than his brother’s suicide. Whereas the dying “set him again,” she felt like he was doing “okay” — and added the entire household was beginning to have extra “frank conversations about psychological well being.”

In a single heartbreaking confessional, Janelle mentioned, “I do know that he is useless, however I overlook that he is useless after which I am like, ‘Oh, I keep in mind.'”

Gabriel made a uncommon look on the present to speak about his late brother.

“Gare actually was like, so real and he did not let onto it rather a lot, however he additionally felt rather a lot deeper than he expressed. Everybody in my household is aware of that,” he recalled. “He introduced an air of ease. He made an unbelievable effort to everybody round him to make them comfy. And I feel that that is the true mark of a gentleman. I feel that Gare did it effectively.”

Madison, one other of Janelle’s youngsters with Kody, shared that she and her mom had been speaking rather a lot the day of Garrison’s dying. Then, her mom instructed her he had dedicated suicide.

“There’s few moments in your life that I really feel like alter your mind chemistry. I undoubtedly really feel like calling siblings {that a} sibling has died undoubtedly alters your mind chemistry,” she recalled. Madison additionally mentioned that she and her husband had been making an attempt to get Garrison to maneuver out close to them and felt they “virtually had him right here too, virtually had him.”

Mykelti, Kody’s daughter with Christine, later remembered Garrison through the episode as being “cool” and the “jokester of the household.”

Following his dying, there was a viewing for household and buddies — one thing Meri recalled as being “actually, actually tough” and “actually, actually painful,” because it was the “final time we noticed his physique.”

Kody mentioned his strongest recollections within the days after Garrison’s dying had been being with Janelle on the funeral residence — as he admitted, “I did not know what to say to anyone moreover I am sorry to all people.”

Christine went on to name the service “stunning,” opening up in regards to the second she misplaced it whereas talking on the memorial.

“It was utterly nice till I made eye contact with Mykelti and mentioned the final line. It is a film quote that he cherished. On the finish of the film, the dragon dies,” she defined, referring to the 1996 film Dragonheart. “He turns into the constellation Draco, who’s a dragon. The final line is, ‘Once we wish to search for him once more, we glance to the celebs.’ And I appeared proper at Mykelti and mentioned, ‘to the celebs.'”

Whereas that they had a viewing in Flagstaff, Janelle defined they had been ready to have a real funeral “in a greater time of 12 months” in Wyoming — “till the summer time, when all people may be there and we are able to have fun him correctly.”

If you happen to or somebody you recognize is fighting despair or has had ideas of harming themselves or taking their very own life, get assist. The Nationwide Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255) gives 24/7, free, confidential help for folks in misery.