Stay Safe: Chapter Eighteen

Stay Safe Book

Aug 21

Written By ereeves

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.

Hoping for a Calm

R. left really early that next morning. When he told me on Saturday that he was planning to leave that afternoon I was surprised and must have shown dismay on my face. I think Mindy and Crista put a little undue pressure on him to stay another night. And when he told me he was staying Saturday night my response was so relieved and pleased, that he somewhat acknowledged that he was staying only because I really wanted him to, not because he really wanted to stay. I didn’t really think twice about this until Sunday morning when he was leaving he said he had pets that needed care and mumbled something about not really having planned to stay the second night.As with each parting I’d had from him, my heart sank when he left, not knowing when I would see him again.Rob always had a special creativity, and somewhat twisted, approach to his tshirts. His tshirt collection is a special collection and coveted by most, re-createable by none. Some of my favorites included a yellow shirt with outlined silhouettes of the Golden Girls from the 1980s TV show with a line that said “Stay Golden” and red shirt with an outline of Sylvester Stallone as Rambo that said “What Would Rambo Do?” There was also the “Ski Iraq” tshirt that came out a lot and the black panther on a rock ledge that was a favorite of his. Jon-Christian even referenced one of Rob’s tshirts in his eulogy. We learned more about this tshirt collection that morning. Dad and I went to brunch with Jerritt and Al., who was a SEAL with Rob, but was now out and in graduate school. Bloody Marys for all, we sat there telling and listening to more stories about Rob that we hadn't heard before. Jerritt and Al. told of Rob turning a Fast Eddie’s bar tshirt into a Fast Weddings bar tshirt for Jerritt after he married the girl that he met at the bar called Fast Eddie’s. Jerritt said that no matter how many times he threw that shirt out, it always ended up folded in his drawer very soon after. He was laughing that morning telling the story, but he said it made him so mad at the time. There was also a story about Rob wearing an Army t-shirt where he had written “sucks” underneath Army, while on an Army base.Most people left town on Sunday, so it was a pretty quiet day. Some of the SEAL team guys swung by the house to say good-bye before they left town. My Shreveport friends were trying to reconnect with their families after taking care of me and our family for the last week. Dad and I moved the furniture that had been pushed back to walls and stored in the sunroom to allow room for visitors over the week. We put it all back to the proper places. We emptied the dishwasher, and generally straightened the house back to a semblance of normalcy. Though some things remained out of place or lost for months. I attempted to do some writing, and put on a movie and sunk into the quiet time. But one of Dad's girlfriends showed and it felt to me that she followed me around the house as I tried to move from room to room to escape her company. My way of not being rude was to retreat to my bedroom with the computer.Eventually she left. And it was just me and Dad for the first time in over a week. The house was quiet. We talked a little bit about who we had each talked to over the last couple of days and swapped stories about the experience. He was in awe of some the people from his past that showed up to the service. I was in awe of the number of Navy men that attended. We ordered cheese dip and guacamole for dinner. For some reason, all I had actually been craving to eat for the past week was cheese dip and chips. A bowl of melted cheese with salted tortilla chips is a delicious combination. Unconcerned about the impending growth of my ass from that cheese consumption, I ate it like it was my last meal.I decided I needed to use this evening to plan a vacation, to give me something to look forward to. It wasn’t rational thought that led me to this decision. It was desperation for anything, anything at all, that I could grasp onto as positive. I knew the coming weeks were going to be full of travel to other funerals and memorial services and I wasn’t looking forward to it. I wanted a trip that I could look forward to. Part of the benefits of working at my agency is that for our 10 year anniversary we get an extra week of vacation and a stipend for a vacation. This is something that had been haunting me for a while because as great as a vacation sounds, I really never have had anyone to take a vacation with. It is not something I want to do by myself and all my friends have people in their lives and would rather save their vacation days and dollars for their own families. With R. in my life as someone that I want to spend more time with, I sent him a note that night inviting him on vacation. We’ve loosely talked of taking a trip many times and in my deluded state thought it would probably do him well to get away as well. I was wrong.

Read other chapters of this book.

ereeves