Stay Safe: Chapter Twenty-Eight
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.
A Burial at Sea
This day I laughed again. Perhaps it was a culmination of emotional build-up and we needed the release. Perhaps we were inappropriate. Perhaps we were delirious and tired. But Jon-Christian and I erupted in laughter during the dispersal of Rob’s ashes into the sea. I needed that laughter.We woke up too early and met Jerritt to escort us to the dock for launching the boats. He was in charge of organizing the event and explaining the program to us all. He was still a little drunk from the night before, I would learn later.We piled into the four boats. I knew very few of the people on any of the boats. For such a personal event, it would have been nice to know more than than the ones that I did. But I had decided I had to trust that Rob knew them and they were each important to him in some way.It was chilly on the water that morning. It is the first time I had been cold all month. August had been unrelentingly, miserably hot. I know Rob wanted to give us a special experience on those boats. It apparently took a lot of work for the teams to get these boats out per Rob’s instructions and civilians aren’t allowed on them. Jon-Christian and I were on the front “row” of the main boat. We were told to have three points connected to the boat all times—two feet planted and one hand on the railing—and to keep our knees bent to prevent injury as the boat bounced over the waves. The team guys were dressed in the camis; Dad have been given a set that he was proudly wearing, patches and all. The rest of us weren’t sure how to dress, but showed up in sneakers, shorts and tshirts. It was a beautiful morning. The guys took us for a boat ride so we could get the full experience of riding on these boats. We went past the beach and saw members of all the other teams lined up in a formation to pay their respects. Every aspect of that morning made me want to cry. I was still trying really hard not to cry in public. I don’t know why. But I just didn’t want people to see that I am weak and especially when it comes to Rob. I know Rob wouldn’t have shown weakness and I was trying to do the same thing. I thought this stoicism would make me feel connected to him.We came to a stop at the place where we were going to bury Rob at sea. The four boats were tied together and the sun was just on the horizon. The guys distributed beers and mini bottles of Patron to all the passengers. And a bag piper started playing from one of the other boats.Dad stood up to say a few words. He talked about how the death of one of Rob’s friends—M.— affected Rob and how Rob used to say “See you on the other side.” That is how Dad closed his presentation on the boat, “See you on the other side, buddy.” A few others got up to say things. Then Dad opened the urn to pour Rob’s ashes into the sea.And that’s when the wind shifted. Dad was on the back of the boat. I was on the front of the boat, next to Jon-Christian. I saw the wind shift and I saw a cloud of the ashes of Rob’s body heading directly toward my face. My internal dialogue, as I attempted suppress the grin on my face in this very grim moment, was, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me you fucking asshole.” I just knew Rob had something to do with this turn of events; it was too perfect, after the earthquake at Jonas’s service the day before and the ashes today, the boys were messing with us, I thought. As I tilted my head to avoid the ash, I caught Jon-Christian’s eyes as he was doing the same thing. We both started laughing, loudly. Then he said, “god-dammit, Walter!” And then I started laughing even more loudly. It reminded me of the line from Steel Magnolias after Shelby’s funeral: “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.” Meanwhile, Rob’s ash cloud had passed over 12 other people who had no reaction whatsoever. And there we were, Rob’s Louisiana family, laughing our asses off. Only Rob could make us laugh like that, so inappropriately. It was kind of perfect. We popped open a beer to toast Rob. The beer tasted like ash. And it was barely 6:15 AM.After Rob’s remains were completely in the water, a bunch of the guys jumped into the water, fully dressed, to have one last drink with him. There was something about Rob’s inventing the underwater tequila shot and they all did one for Rob and with Rob, or rather with his ashes. It was touching and silly at the same time.After the burial, we went back to Rob’s house where K. and her sister hosted a brunch. I found it hard to make conversation. My body ached from the tension of the last several weeks. I hadn’t been sleeping much and I had been worrying too much. All my waking hours were spent thinking about Rob, which made me emotional. Another event with people I barely knew in Rob’s house that felt nothing like him was not where I wanted to be that morning. K.’s sister had worked hard on the brunch and it was so nice. But I was just drained.There was yet another photo slideshow set to music. I love Rob, but I decided at that point if I had to watch another photo slideshow, I might run out of the room screaming. Though admittedly, this one attempted to be funny with a whole series of photos that Rob took, rather than photos of Rob. And of course, the photos Rob took were somewhat inappropriate: naked statues in France, dolls on top of each other, posed pictures of K. seemingly passed out surrounded by bottles of booze. This would have made Rob laugh, I am sure. I noted that Rob did not have an eye for photography. We politely watched this video, people laughed and cried and then it was over.Rob had been through similar events for his friends that had lost their lives and I wondered if he’d ever thought about what a similar event might look like for himself if he were the one to have died. And if he imagined it, was this what it looked like? Did we represent him the way he would have wanted to be represented? I am not sure that we did. We were all trying very hard to remember Rob and respect each other and respect him, but I am not sure we did it right or did it how he would have wanted. I was uncomfortable in this foreign land of Virginia Beach, and the lives the military families lead on a daily basis that is outside my reality. Rob and I talked a lot, but we didn’t talk about what it really meant to live a military life and be faced with death regularly.Dad and I left the brunch while it was still early, maybe between nine and ten that morning, but it felt like it had already been a full day. I was driving, and since he had started drinking around five this morning with beer and tequila on the boats for one last drink with Rob, and continued at the brunch with Bloody Marys and Mimosas, Dad was full-on drunk. He prepared a full drink for the ride back to the hotel. And while holding the drink in his hand, he dozed off in the car. Which, of course, led to the prompt dumping of the drink into the floorboard of the car. He did not wake. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. It was the Johnny Walker Black Label on ice, so the car smelled grotesquely of whiskey for the ride back to the hotel.Before we got back to the hotel, Dad wanted his picture taken in his new “camis.” He was proud and wanted to remember the day. We stopped by the Neptune statue on the boardwalk for Dad to pose in front of it. We had taken pictures with the Neptune statue before on previous trips to Virginia Beach to visit Rob, so it had a special meaning for us.We went back to the hotel for Dad to take nap and we agreed to meet again at 2 PM that afternoon. Dad missed the deadline; I woke him from a dead sleep after many texts, phone calls and pounding on his hotel room door. I can’t blame him, really. If someone else had been there to take care of us both, I would have been right there with him. But he needed me to be the caretaker that week, hell, that month, and it was a role I was glad to assume given how he had taken care of me, Rob and Mom, for so many years. I don’t think Rob’s being gone had set in for me yet. I think it had fully set in with Dad; he started preparing himself for it a long time ago, though one can ever be fully prepared.When finally aroused and ready to go, Dad and I ventured back to Rob’s house to meet with a real estate agent to discuss putting his house on the market. We were hoping she would be willing to cut her commission given the poor situation in which we found ourselves given the value of the house compared to the amount owed. Unfortunately, she was unwilling to do this, despite supposedly being Rob’s friend. We confirmed the suspicions that the house was valued under what Rob owed, which essentially meant that Dad would be paying to sell Rob’s house. And paying a lot. Rob purchased his house in 2004 at a time when real estate prices were on the rise. Prices started to decline in 2006 and 2007, then in 2008 they hit rock bottom and hadn’t yet recovered when it was time to sell Rob’s house. No one was anxious to move quickly, as a result. The day just continued to suck.We went back to the hotel briefly to freshen up and meet my mom’s sister Michelle and her family, husband Bill and son John, for dinner. We caught them up on the events of the week and caught up on John’s life and college prospects. It was a comfortable dinner with family.
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