Stay Safe: Chapter Thirty
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.
Arlington
I had grown tired of wearing black. I had tired of sweating. I was weary from crying in private. I had exhausted myself from working hard to not cry around others. I was whining. This Friday was not about me or Rob, though. It was about the 13 guys that chose be buried at Arlington. I think Dad might have been a little disappointed that Rob didn’t want to be buried at Arlington. At one point, we even talked about doing it anyway, against Rob’s wishes. But I really didn’t want to do that. Rob left us very little instruction but what he did leave said to bury him at sea, and ultimately Dad agreed. Though we did request and receive a marker for Rob at Arlington.I still wonder how much thought Rob gave to that other than trying to make the guys left behind work on his behalf if he happened to have met the fate that he did. Rob was always thinking of others, both genuinely and mischievously, and I smiled at that thought.I was slow to rise out of bed. I felt heavy with built up sorrow of the week on my shoulders and in my back. I wondered why we thought attending the Arlington funerals was something we needed to do. We had already buried our family. But we were going and many of our extended family were planning to attend as well. There is something revered about an Arlington burial and people wanted to be a part of that.We got to fly to Arlington again instead of taking the long, long bus ride from Virginia Beach to D.C. that many others had to take. This time United Airlines donated use of their plane and crew to get the families to the burial service. Once again, I was amazed by the support that this country gives to troops and their families. With the politicizing of the war and people’s instant opinions—sometimes just expressed by the look on their faces when I mention Rob and his chosen career—I have been pre-disposed to believe that most people don’t care. But this week, this month, had shown me differently. The people that are disinterested in the battles don’t have loved ones in the military, fighting directly on their behalf.In what was becoming a pattern I never want to repeat, we drove to the base, boarded a bus, went the airplane, boarded, landed at the airport, boarded a bus and were taken to a church at Arlington, where we were put in a holding room. I knew this was the best way to shuttle large groups of people to the places we needed to be, but it really felt like we were prisoners at the mercy of our handlers as to when to arrive and when to leave. I didn’t want to be critical of the team that was working day and night to make sure all the families were well taken care of, but I was personally tired of being shuttled around with little freedom for movement or derivation from the plan. And it was so very hot. Again. I can’t believe all these Navy guys had to wear those dark blue wool suits every day during that August heat. Someone should have granted them some reprieve. Each time I hugged the guys, the smell of their suits were progressively worse as they were sweating through them every day during the month of August.We were encouraged to pack overnight bags just in case we got stuck in Arlington due to Hurricane Irene heading in that evening. Dad and I packed bags, but we ended up leaving them in the car on base. I was glad in the end because we would have been hauling an overnight bag around all day as we moved through the process and that would have been a real pain in the ass. Though staying overnight without all my stuff would have been a pain in the ass, as well. But these are problems I bring on myself as an over-packer.We were shuffled into a relatively small church for the non-denominational service, then lined up outside for the two-mile walk to the gravesite. I was glad I wore my cute leopard print flat shoes and packed a lot of water.When we arrived at the gravesites, it was more standing around and waiting. The way the arrangement was set up, we couldn’t see anything, but later figured out we were standing behind H.’s family. H. was Rob’s business partner, and one of Rob’s best friends. Rob definitely trusted him, though Dad and I had never met him. I think that would have made Rob happy, though we had not really had any contact with H.’s family throughout the whole series of events.We were standing at the grave sites waiting. We were hearing that the ceremonies would kick off with a flyover, so everyone was kind of looking up toward the sky. But nothing was happening. It had probably been about 30 minutes of staring at the sky when I decided this was going to take much longer than anticipated and the vast amounts of water I had been drinking was setting in and my bladder was no longer able to hold it together.I left my bag with Dad and went off in search of a bathroom. Bathrooms are hard to find at Arlington. I feel certain Rob was smiling down on me this afternoon to witness my peril.I couldn’t really tell who was in charge of coordinating this event, but set off toward what looked like people in charge. I was walking quickly. I had held my bathroom need for too long and was entering panic mode. I was hoping for a port-a-potty or something similar around the perimeter where we were set up, but no such luck. The woman I found to talk to said the closest one was in the crematorium and then attempted to give me directions. All I saw was the direction she pointed and I went off in that direction. Perhaps I should have listened a little better.The crematorium felt like a maze, a series of walls and twists and turns and no directional signage. I was desperate. I panicked. I had no choice. I squatted and peed in the crematorium. I felt guilty and well, relieved. I knew it was disrespectful, but I did justify it in the sense that it wasn’t on someone’s grave. Rather it was in front of several people’s final resting places. And as I squatted there, I had the opportunity to look around. I was looking specifically for cameras, security cameras. I thought to myself, if I ever see footage of someone with a black dress and cute leopard flats squatting to pee in a crematorium caught on camera, I would know it was me and hopefully my face will be blurred. And then I thought about how ridiculous this whole situation was and I couldn’t help but laugh, which led me to cry. All while I was still squatting in front of some person’s ashes, peeing. I hoped that the person who was buried in the wall facing my ass had as a good a sense of humor as Rob did. And I hoped they were laughing with me.Once I had my senses back and the panic calmed with an empty bladder, I easily found the bathroom not far from my point of no return. I took time to clean myself up and walked calmly back to the grave sites. Where the ceremony still hadn’t started.Eventually, the ceremonies started, but we didn’t even realize that they had begun. We stood there, in silence, hearing nothing around us. Sweating, shifting uncomfortable from foot to foot as we had been there for hours, tense and thirsty, we stood there dutifully. My mind wandered to anything and everything. I wanted Rob to be there with us, to be our escort, take care of us and explain what was happening. I wondered how many of these services he had attended, he never spoke of them if he had participated. Rob was such a storyteller, mostly of tall tales which we had trouble believing (rightfully so, as it usually turned out), but he didn’t tell the stories of death and sadness. He attempted to shield us from those thoughts. When the ceremonies were over—of which we couldn’t hear a thing said or see a thing done—we progressed back to the buses.We were told that we had to board the buses immediately to go back to the airport to get airborne before Hurricane Irene moved in. That’s right: there was a hurricane coming up the east coast, headed straight for us.Being the rule-followers that Dad and I are, we went straight to the bus. S. and Jerritt came with us. But we were the only people—of the hundreds attending the service—sitting on that bus. There was a reception just up the street and everyone else went that reception. We sat there for an hour. We were all hungry and we all started complaining. I had snacks for everyone in my big-always-be-prepared bag that I shared to tide us over. While we were sitting there, we learned that our scheduled flights home for the next day had been canceled in anticipation of the impending doom of Hurricane Irene. All flights out were canceled. I immediately started working on getting us rebooked and getting hotel rooms secured for additional nights. Our new flight wasn’t scheduled to depart until Monday, so it looked like we would be spending the weekend in Virginia Beach. But our hotel was literally on the beach; not exactly the place we wanted to be when a hurricane was headed our way.A couple of people wandered back to the bus and told us the reception was really very close. We all decided we couldn’t take the waiting any more and ventured up to the reception, where the party was going strong. We got food and drink and got a few conversations in before it was time to head to the bus for real.The bus took us back to the airport and the crew rushed us to get seated and take off as soon as possible in order to miss the storm. It was actually a little scary. I was glad that we got back to Virginia Beach safely after a turbulent flight from the brewing storm.We got back to the hotel pretty late that night. The hotel had pulled all the balcony furniture into our rooms and put water blocking sand bags on either side of all the doors. This was not a comforting sight. The wind was blowing pretty hard and the waves looked strong as they crashed onto the beach. The sounds of the wind and the waves were powerful and anything but comforting. But I was exhausted. Dad and I planned to meet the next morning to check out of that hotel and into one a little further inland for the rest of the weekend until we could finally go home.
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