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

The digital camera then minimize, earlier than a slate introduced Garrison’s loss of life.

“He advised me the phrases that I will always remember. He goes, ‘Garrison took his life.’ And it was similar to this bizarre, bizarre, surreal second,” Meri stated in a later confessional. “Not one among our youngsters. 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 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 during which they detailed how they came upon about his loss of life and the aftermath.

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

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

“Grief is available in waves. It simply wasn’t alleged to be this fashion. It is simply heartbreaking and I do not … I did not get an opportunity to essentially make issues proper,” he stated in a dialog together with his spouse. “Simply not with the ability to say goodbye. Simply do not know what to do together with his loss of life as a result of it is like I’ve acquired to do one thing completely different as a result of I may have had extra time with him and I believed there can be extra time.”

He then began to undergo the numerous “what ifs” going by 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 executed extra? What if? What if? What if? It nonetheless makes me surprise if one thing may have been executed,” 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 pieces like that, hastily, 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 members of the family, Kody stated 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 loss of life, one other of Kody’s estranged kids, daughter Gwendylyn, apparently wanted to be along with her father.

“Gwendylyn known as me and stated may 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 have been holding arms as soon as she confirmed as much as his residence.

“I really feel this grief come up out of me and everyone’s silent. Gwendylyn’s sobbing, Robyn’s attempting to console her, this grief comes out of me and I wailed and that is once I grew to become actually conscious that this case 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, stated she and her son had been texting one another all day earlier than his loss of life — one thing she stated was “commonplace,” as they typically talked just a few occasions every day.

“I knew he was struggling and I at all times simply picked up the cellphone and I at all times make it a degree to only discuss to him. And it wasn’t actually about something, I believe he wanted the connection,” she stated, including that she knew he was typically speaking together with his brothers as effectively.

The night time he died, she laid right down to go to mattress round 8:30pm and he “form of stopped texting me.” She stated she knew he had began consuming 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 stated, ‘He is useless. He killed himself.’ I do not keep in mind the subsequent couple of minutes. I acquired within the automobile and drove,” she revealed.

Trying again, Janelle stated that he “actually struggled” with alcohol in recent times, one thing he began to do throughout COVID. She stated 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 go out and he would go form of radio silent, however he’d be again within the morning.”

Janelle defined she was glad she wasn’t residing in Flagstaff anymore and was glad to be nearer to her children 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 consuming as a option to soothe that after which it simply grew to become the animal he could not get ahold of,” Janelle advised her sister. “We did all the pieces we may. And I do know that.”

She added that she was a bit “frightened” about Gabriel, who discovered Garrison’s physique, however stated 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 loss of life “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 stated, “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 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 snug. 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 kids with Kody, shared that she and her mom had been speaking lots the day of Garrison’s loss of life. Then, her mom advised her he had dedicated suicide.

“There’s few moments in your life that I really feel like alter your mind chemistry. I positively really feel like calling siblings {that a} sibling has died positively alters your mind chemistry,” she recalled. Madison additionally stated that she and her husband have been attempting 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 in the course of the episode as being “cool” and the “jokester of the household.”

Following his loss of life, there was a viewing for household and mates — one thing Meri recalled as being “actually, actually troublesome” and “actually, actually painful,” because it was the “final time we noticed his physique.”

Kody stated his strongest reminiscences within the days after Garrison’s loss of life have been being with Janelle on the funeral residence — as he admitted, “I did not know what to say to anyone apart from I am sorry to everyone.”

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 fully high-quality till I made eye contact with Mykelti and stated 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 wish to search for him once more, we glance to the celebrities.’ And I appeared proper at Mykelti and stated, ‘to the celebrities.'”

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 everyone may be there and we are able to have a good time him correctly.”

In case you or somebody is battling 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) offers 24/7, free, confidential help for folks in misery.