I can not figure out why I replay the airport scene so much, when in reality May 8th is the day that our lives changed forever.

6:34am the dogs are barking and I think I heard a knock on the front door, but why on earth at 6:34am? I jump out of bed, the alarm is set to go off at 7:00am and I am annoyed to have lost the last few sacred minutes of sleep. I ask Matt if we were expecting workers at the house this morning? A loud knocking at the door again. I walk down the hallway to the front door and see that there are 2 army soldiers at our door. I walk back to the bedroom, tell Matt that there are two Army men at our door and we both immediately assume that Toliy has done something to get himself in trouble in the Army. I continue pulling on clothes, pulling my hair back. Matt makes it the door and as he is opening the door we both greet the two men. They introduce themselves, I can not for the life of me remember their names, but as I look back on that day I now realize that the one person was definitely introduced as Chaplain blah, blah, blah……It never dawned on me why there would be a priest at my door telling me that my son had gotten himself in trouble with the Army. We invite them into the kitchen. Turn on lights along the way. Both men stand by our stove. Matt stands across from them and I stay in the doorway self conscience of the fact that I should have put on a bra. While I am stressing over no bra, one man says words that we have to ask him to repeat to us three times, because there is no way what he is saying is real. “Mr. and Mrs. Givens, last night at 8:31pm Private Anatoliy Givens was pronounced dead in his barracks room by self inflicted hanging.” What? Again he says, “Mr. and Mrs. Givens, last night at 8:31pm Private Anatoliy Givens was pronounced dead in his barracks room by self inflicted hanging.” Oh my God, stop repeating those words! What did he just say? I reach up and grab the molding of the doorway because I have nothing else to grab on to and I know that I can not remain standing. It is the strangest feeling that I have ever felt. I wasn’t going to pass out, I wanted to, but I knew I couldn’t physically keep standing. I started to lower myself to the floor, Matt grabbed me and I literally had noises come out of me that I have never heard before. Crying, yelling – I dont even know? It was almost as if it took time for the words to register, like we were in slow motion speed. It hits me immediately, a priest, of course, its just like the movies, they show up to tell you that your loved one has died! I feel so stupid and unprepared. Clearly the Army doesn’t send two men to your door at 6:30 in the morning to tell you that your son is in trouble for some reason! Matt is crying, I’m crying, and I remember thinking that we need to be more quiet b/c the boys are still sleeping. The boys! I can not even imagine them hearing this conversation. I immediately start to reign in my emotions. The boys can not wake up and see us like this. The one man asks us to sit down at the kitchen table to sign some paperwork. I have no idea what we signed. I don’t know what they told us. I know that the priest asked to say a prayer for us. We all prayed. They said someone would be in contact with us today and tomorrow. They left. All of that happened by 7:05am. As the men were walking out, the boys were getting up. I went in to the bathroom to clean myself up, put on a bra and try to look a little normal for the upcoming conversation with our boys. We told the boys that they weren’t going to school and that we were going to have a family meeting after breakfast. Really what Matt and I wanted was time. Time to make coffee. Time to think about what just happened. Time to collect our thoughts about how to tell our boys that their brother, who they all adored, had died last night and also he died by suicide. There is nothing in life that prepares you for this conversation. Matt and I made coffee, poured ourselves a cup. The boys ate breakfast. We all met in the family room. In the next few moments their lives changed forever. Alex ran out the back door to the trampoline where he sat and cried. William was curled up on the floor crying and very shortly in my lap. Ryan sat here saying, “wait I don’t understand? Toliy is dead?” Yes, Ryan. “How?” I wanted to spare them all of the details, but Matt said “Toliy hung himself in his room.” I knew they would find out but at that moment I was more stressed that they knew how he died versus just the fact that he was dead? Grief does crazy things to your thoughts. I remember all of us walking off in different directions. I wound up in our sitting room, just staring out our back door, totally lost with what to do? I literally could not think of the next step. Matt was already saying that we needed to start calling people and I asked him to just please wait. Just give me an hour to sit here with the news and keep it to myself. Almost as if, if we don’t share the news then it won’t be real. But the news was very real and very shocking and the days ahead would prove to be the hardest that I have ever endured as a person, mother and wife.