\n<\/p>\n
“Because we’ve tag-teamed,” Janelle explained of how the family continued to rally around the Nevada National Guard staff sergeant<\/a>, “I said, ‘Will you guys see if Garrison will repond to you?’ And so they were on it.”\u00a0<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n She could have never imagined the wake-up call she received.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Gabriel had found him,” Janelle said of Garrison, who died by suicide<\/a>. “He’s like, ‘Mom, he’s gone.’ I mean, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘He’s dead. He killed himself.'”\u00a0<\/p>\n The moments that followed were largely a blur.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I don’t remember the next few minutes,” Janelle admitted of her shock, “but I got in the car and drove.”\u00a0<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I called Janelle,” Meri recounted on the May 4 episode devoted to Garrison’s passing<\/a>, “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.”\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n