“Because we’ve tag-teamed,” Janelle explained of how the family continued to rally around the Nevada National Guard staff sergeant, “I said, ‘Will you guys see if Garrison will repond to you?’ And so they were on it.”
Confident her baby was in good hands (“They said, ‘Mom, we’re on it. We’ll just kind of check on him and make sure he’s OK'”), the 55-year-old fell asleep.
She could have never imagined the wake-up call she received.
“Gabriel had found him,” Janelle said of Garrison, who died by suicide. “He’s like, ‘Mom, he’s gone.’ I mean, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘He’s dead. He killed himself.'”
The moments that followed were largely a blur.
“I don’t remember the next few minutes,” Janelle admitted of her shock, “but I got in the car and drove.”
She made her way to Garrison’s home, calling daughter Maddie along the way. And at some point, members of their expansive family began to rally around her.
“I called Janelle,” Meri recounted on the May 4 episode devoted to Garrison’s passing, “I said, ‘I’m stopping, I’m getting food and I’ll be over in a little bit. I didn’t know what else to do.”
