Stay Safe: Chapter Four

stay-safe-featured.png

What follows is a chapter from "Stay Safe: Life After Loss," a book that I wrote following the death of my brother, Robert James Reeves. Rob, only 14-months younger than me and 32 years old at the time of his death, was a Navy SEAL on the prestigious SEAL Team 6. On August 6, 2011, while on a mission in Afghanistan, he and too many of his teammates and other servicemen, lost their lives when their helicopter was shot down by enemy fire. It was the single largest loss of American life in the Afghan war. And because of the high profile nature of this event–being on the cusp of the Bin Laden mission and the number of those lost–my dad and I were part of many, many memorials and events, and the recipients of much outreach, and the point of contact for all those wanting to do something in Rob’s memory. This book chronicles the first month after his death. I am releasing a chapter a day starting August 5th as we mark the fourth anniversary of life without him.


StaySafe_banner_550x117

On Sunday, the day after I had been notified that Rob was gone forever, I don’t think I believed it was real yet. But there was all this business of death to attend to and we focused on that.Our three Navy friends, one old friend and two new friends—Jerritt, M. and S.—came back over that morning to start the paperwork that goes along with a military death. At least they arrived looking more relaxed this day in shorts and t-shirts, which I think made Dad and I more comfortable. We all pulled up around the kitchen table and sent the many other house occupants to other areas of the house to answer the constantly ringing phone and deal with new visitors as they arrived. Dad was Rob’s primary next of kin, so it was his signature needed on the notification forms and it was he who had to complete forms for the insurance. They showed us a form that Rob had completed prior to deployment with his last wishes. It is something that all men are required to complete before each deployment. It was written in Rob’s handwriting and seeing that put a knot in my stomach. I worked hard to maintain composure, be a great host and gracious to all those that wanted our time and attention. I think I succeeded this day again, but it was going to get harder.We have an assigned "CACO" (Casualty Assistance Calls Officer). That is S.’s job. I didn't even think to ask what this stands for at the time; I just called him our "question guy." If we have a question about anything, we are supposed to direct it to him. S. got chocked up before he get through the first form and tried to explain this part of the process. I felt sorry for him. Dad and I tried to put him at ease and said that we understood and to take all the time he needed to tell us what he had on his forms. Dad thought that we are probably his first CACO assignment.  We made it through this first round of forms. We were at the kitchen table, just the five of us, but the house was buzzing around us with people moving in and out while attempting to give us a modicum of privacy.Rob’s last wishes were typical Rob: not typical. He asked to be cremated and buried at sea, but on special military-personnel-only boats at sunrise with his family on board. I remember talking to him once about his not wanting to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. But surely he had to realize that we would need to do something more than he outlined. I was comforted by the intimate ceremony that he planned for his burial in Virginia Beach, though I knew we would have to do something larger and more inclusive in Shreveport, too. We were still a few weeks off from being able to conduct his burial at sea given the logistics of getting us on those boats. Riding on a military boat that most civilians don't even get to touch sounded interesting, I guess. The guys said it was going to take a little finagling to make it happen.This day—only one day after we had been notified—remained chaotic. There were people are in and out of our faces, some I recognized, some I knew I should but didn't anymore and we had to make a constant stream of decisions on the spot. “What name do you want on the urn?” “Do you want a metal or a wooden urn?” “When is the service?” “When is the service?” “When is the service?” Dad was looking at me to help make all of these decisions. I could tell he was having some internal crisis and turmoil, but he was hiding it well from the outside world. Everyone that walked in said something like, "your dad seems to be doing well and handling this well." They knew nothing. About either of us.It felt to me like we were getting a lot of pressure for a memorial service. All of our friends and family wanted to show up and "pay their respects,” whatever that means. We started planning a memorial service. In a church. Rob would be cringing if he had a say in whether the service was conducted at the church and would hate a big memorial service. But this service wasn’t for Rob. His burial at sea was for him and those he specifically mentioned. This service was for all those people that are honored by Rob’s service, who want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, and let's be honest, just want to say they went to the service of a Navy SEAL and that they knew Rob in some small, even tiny, way. And, quite frankly, it was easiest for me and Dad if we held it in the church. That is what we decided and we planned it for the next weekend in the church where we grew up and where all our significant events have been held to date. Dad was so in awe of Adam Brown's service in Hot Springs, AR the previous year and had continued to talk about how touching it was with the community support and the Navy attendance, so we were going to try to pull that off for Rob’s service as well and hope he wouldn’t find a way to punish us for it. Rob was with Adam when he died and had asked that Dad and I attend Adam's service, though we had never met him. I am glad that we did, as it comforted Rob, and somewhat prepared me for what we were about to experience.It seemed that everything was moving at lightening speed, yet I felt like I was slogging through mud. We actually met with the reverend of the church that afternoon. I asked for help from family friend Dr. Hearne as he was so much more familiar with the church; I felt Dad and I needed some additional guidance on the selection of scripture to read and songs to sing. It was comforting to have Dr. Hearne there. Rob may not have spent as much time with the Hearne family as I had growing up, but I felt like a part of their family growing up and I feel like they are part of our family, and Rob really adored their daughter and my friend Bethard.Dad was still looking to me to make decisions. With some details worked out and a list of what specific further decisions needed to be made, I distributed the information to those requesting it. And hoped for some relief from the constant barrage of questions about a memorial service. Though I put the wrong month in the email and had no shortage of people responding to point out my error (but really, they had to know I didn’t mean July of next year and could have saved me the grief letting me know about my mistake).I made another mistake and forgot to call Rob’s girlfriend, K. to tell her about the planned memorial service and just check on her in general. I texted a bit with her the day of the notification I think, to let her know we were thinking about her. But, I'll be honest, she just wasn't a priority in my thinking. She and Rob had broken up for a while and it really didn't seem like he had been back together with her that long now. Dad and I both liked K. a lot, but when talking to me, Rob always positioned his relationship with her as temporary. Though I believe this was Rob just trying to keep his emotions distant and manage her expectations; he never wanted to leave a widow and he knew the dangers of his job. I know that Rob loved K. very much. In the chaos of this day, I simply didn’t think about her. But, when I posted the memorial information on Facebook and she saw the information there, she sent me a text about it. I felt terrible. I called her immediately and explained. She seemed to understand and said that she was planning to come to Shreveport for the service.Sometime throughout the day Sunday, it was decided that we were leaving the next day, Monday, to go to Dover Air Force Base to be a part of the Dignified Transfer of remains process. They could use a better name for it than that. A Dignified Transfer is the process of transferring those that have died during military service from the aircraft on which they are carried back to the United States to a transfer vehicle that moves them to the mortuary.  A Dignified Transfer is conducted for every U.S. military member who dies during operations while in the service of their country. The Navy couldn't tell us exactly when the ceremony would be or the details of it, but just said that we should book tickets for early tomorrow morning and plan to come back on Tuesday night. They said that we could bring three people total. It was me, Dad and Jon-Christian, Rob’s best friend and considered a member of our family we had known him so long.Rob mentioned Jon-Christian specifically in his last wishes document. I think Rob talked to Jon-Christian as much, if not more, than he talked to Dad and me. Jon-Christian is funny and kind and loyal. And he lived just down the street from us, so he was one friend that I saw regularly on visits to Dad’s house. Rob and Jon-Christian had known each other since they were three years old and remained friends until the day Rob died. They played soccer together, but more time was spent getting into trouble together. Because of their history, they were extremely loyal to each other. In high school, when I didn’t have a date for the senior prom, Jon-Christian took me and I knew it was because Rob had asked him to, though I never told either of them that I knew that. An avid hunter, Rob would bring military-grade weapons to Jon-Christian with every visit to Shreveport. Jon-Christian’s wife, Leslie, said that Rob always ruined her Christmas gifts to Jon-Christian because Rob’s were so much better. Now Jon-Christian was a dentist with his own practice in Shreveport. Jon-Christian had planned to invest in a business venture that Rob had been working on in the months leading up to his death and he was likely the last person in the U.S. to have talked to him. They were best friends.In my rush to get to Shreveport on Saturday, I did not pack my bags for any kind of formal service, so Crista, Bethard and I scooted out of the house for one hour of department store shopping to find a black dress and a pair of shoes. We succeeded in only 45 minutes.That night, we ordered Johnny's pizza and the party and crazy continued into the night. Rob’s high school girlfriend parked herself at the house and attached herself to Jerritt’s hip and just wouldn't leave. It was awkward, but he was eventually able to deposit her at Jon-Christian’s house down the street. Jon-Christian’s rendition of this transaction was: Jerritt opened the door, pushed her in and ran away, leaving he and his wife to figure out what to do with her. We laughed until we cried when Jon-Christian told the story. He has a way about his storytelling that makes things funnier than they should be—his tone, commentary, language and reenactments all add to the stories to make them taller tales with more drama. Then the less-than-tasteful neighbor from across the street (and apparently Dad's new best friend) was insisting on lighting a candle in our yard despite the burn ban in Shreveport. Because we needed additional things to worry about. Every time my caring and protective friend Bethard walked outside and blew out the candle, the neighbor marched across the street and relit it. I couldn’t believe this was really happening. I think we were close to having a cat fight in the front yard. I had been carefully balancing my emotions for the last two days to maintain composure and this small event with the candle was making that balance more difficult. I insisted, in a not quiet way, that Dad go outside and deal with his neighbor. Dad doesn’t deal with confrontation well, even when he needs to take the side of his distraught daughter. But he went outside and made jokes with this woman while I steamed inside. And the candle remained unlit the rest of the night. It was the little things like this that just made the day bizarre.This evening, Jerritt mentioned K. and asked if we intended to "take care of her” since she was not named as a beneficiary, as far as anyone knew. Rob and K. had been together as a couple for seven years, though off and on.  They had recently gotten back together six months or so before he died and had been broken up almost a year prior to that. But when he died, they were living together and she was basically managing his house, though two to three other Navy SEALs lived there at any given time. Rob and K.’s lives were intertwined. But they weren’t married and Rob had been adamant to everyone he talked to that they would not be getting married. Because they were not married and Rob didn’t have any children, even if he didn’t have a will, Dad would be his primary next of kin and de facto beneficiary. Rob did have a will that was found on file confirming Dad as his sole beneficiary.Of course, Jerritt asked this question after copious amounts of alcohol had been consumed throughout the day. Dad didn’t even know what he was the “beneficiary” of at that point other than grief. How is that people start thinking about money and what they get just hours after a sudden, tragic and traumatic death? Dad started to answer the question about K. and I cut him off. The topic should not have been brought up. And really, what were we supposed to do for her? Rob spelled out exactly what he wanted: she would be one of the few there for the burial, but Dad was Rob’s beneficiary. It should have been easy. But, few things in life are easy and there was clearly an expectation that we "take care of her.” I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know how or what that would be at the time, but I knew Dad would do his best to represent Rob well. The Navy viewed her as family and we would do our best to treat her as family as well.Due to the number of men that were with Rob on that helicopter, the Navy was working overtime to handle all the families, their travel and their needs. Around seven o'clock that night, S. asked if we could purchase our own tickets to Dover and be reimbursed by the Navy the following week. Of course we agreed. But the saga didn't end there. M. accidentally purchased the $4000 worth of tickets to the wrong location. By this time, it was after ten o'clock in the evening, everyone was tired and irritable. A call was made to Travelocity to cancel the tickets and get us re-booked into Philadelphia rather than Pittsburgh. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 8:50 AM the next morning—Monday—and it would take all day to get there. Jerritt would be traveling with us: me, Dad and Jon-Christian.I loved that Rob included Jon-Christian on all of his last wishes plans. Jon-Christian was really suffering from the loss of his best friend, but he was trying to be so strong and supportive for me and Dad. I am glad that he was there with us and traveled with us throughout the month. Jon-Christian with us was like having a bit of Rob with us. I understand why Rob trusted him like he did; he is a good person who cares deeply.


Miss Melinda—a dear family friend, one of my mom’s friends, and one of many of her friends that have been like a surrogate mother to me, and Jon-Christian’s mother-in-law— said  something this day that made me smile and felt just a little bit better: she said she was comforted by the fact that Rob was probably sitting somewhere with Mom right now and making her laugh and keeping that gigantic smile on her face. That was the image that I was going to hold on to forever: the two of them are together. Read other chapters of this book.© 2015 Emily Reeves Dean and msadverthinker.com. All Rights Reserved.

Previous
Previous

Stay Safe: Chapter Five

Next
Next

Stay Safe: Chapter Three