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

Sunday’s new hour of Sister Wives was a tricky watch, because the Brown household realized the surprising information that one in all 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 — one in all Kody’s ex-wives — sat down for a confessional interview with producers. As she was about to start out answering questions on one other subject, she began getting telephone 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 regarded shocked.

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

“He instructed me the phrases that I will always remember. He goes, ‘Garrison took his life.’ And it was identical to this bizarre, bizarre, surreal second,” Meri mentioned in a later confessional. “Not one in all our children. They don’t seem to be gonna do this. I left and went up there to Kody and Robyn’s home.”

Garrison, the son of Kody and ex-wife Janelle, was discovered lifeless at his Flagstaff, Arizona house 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 wherein they detailed how they came upon about his dying and the aftermath.

Kody and Garrison have been nonetheless considerably estranged earlier than his dying, it appears, following a shifting household dynamic over COVID. Kody felt among the youngsters — particularly his sons with Janelle, Garrison included — weren’t respecting his COVID protocols and have 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 purported 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 bought 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 numerous “what ifs” going by his thoughts.

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

Getting visibly emotional, he puzzled, “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, primarily based on his needs, and produce his stays to Wyoming to be buried close to different relations, Kody mentioned he regarded on the journey as a “pilgrimage” of kinds. “I simply need to take his physique house 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 together with her father.

“Gwendylyn referred to as me and mentioned might she come and see me. She referred to 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 have been holding arms as soon as she confirmed as much as his house.

“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 once 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 “commonplace,” as they usually talked a couple of occasions every day.

“I knew he was struggling and I all the time simply picked up the telephone and I all the time make it a degree to simply speak to him. And it wasn’t actually about something, I believe 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 right 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 have 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 lifeless. He killed himself.’ I do not bear in mind the following jiffy. I bought 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 supplied him “all of the love, all of the assist, all the assistance, all of the assets,” 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 go 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 dwelling in Flagstaff anymore and was joyful to be nearer to her youngsters and grandchildren after a latest 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 nervousness and melancholy. He began ingesting as a method 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 “nervous” 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 lifeless, however I overlook that he is lifeless after which I am like, ‘Oh, I bear 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 lots, however he additionally felt lots 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 believe that that is the true mark of a gentleman. I believe that Gare did it effectively.”

Madison, one other of Janelle’s youngsters with Kody, shared that she and her mom had been speaking lots 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 have 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 throughout the episode as being “cool” and the “jokester of the household.”

Following his dying, there was a viewing for household and pals — one thing Meri recalled as being “actually, actually troublesome” 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 have been being with Janelle on the funeral house — 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 “lovely,” opening up in regards to the second she misplaced it whereas talking on the memorial.

“It was utterly wonderful till I made eye contact with Mykelti and mentioned the final line. It is a film quote that he liked. 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, ‘After we need to search for him once more, we glance to the celebs.’ And I regarded proper at Mykelti and mentioned, ‘to the celebs.'”

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

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