Sister Wives star feels remorse about not mending fences with ahead of his son’s death earlier this year.
“We could have been talking more. I’d get texts, stuff like that, and we could have, retrospectively, we could have done so much more,” Kody, 55, told People in an interview published on Thursday, September 12. “And it was almost like, ‘I’m busy with my life, he’s busy with his life, and when we connect, we’ll connect.’”
He continued, “It was kind of, like, ‘We’ve got forever.’ It was more, like, a convenience of time that I felt like I had. Retrospectively, there would’ve been more of a regular catching up and touching base.”
Garrison (legal name Robert Garrison) died by suicide in March at the age of 25. He is one of the sons of Kody and ex-wife.
“The hard part is giving away that future that I saw for him, the excitement. It’s strange having your child pass,” Kody recalled to the outlet. “The wave of grief is different [from] any wave of grief I have ever had with a best friend passing [or] with a relative passing. It’s different. And it is different in the idea that it’s irreconcilable — the future that we missed with him.”
Kody further explained that he regrets not making the time to see Garrison in the months before his death.
“I want to go out to dinner again. I want to sit down. I want to have a beer. I want him to try and make me laugh because he was kind of that way,” Kody said on Thursday. “The only regret is just, gosh, I would just do that more often. The only regret is that you didn’t do something. You didn’t take more time.”
Prior to Garrison’s death, he and brother had been estranged from Kody after disagreeing on COVID-19 protocols.
“There’s still not a lot of movement,” Janelle, 55, exclusively told Us Weekly in November 2023. “I’m hoping that time heals. Even if they maybe don’t reconcile, but they come to a peace because I feel like when there’s static in relationships, especially in a parental relationship, it does affect your life.”
Janelle added, “It does affect them when they don’t have a good [relationship] with their dad. So, I’m hoping that in the future, things can get better.”
Janelle and Kody share four other children. Kody also shares other kids with exes and and current wife Robyn Brown.
For Kody, Garrison’s death changed him “irrevocably.”
“I can’t get back to where I was. I can’t reconcile that he’s not here,” the Sister Wives patriarch told People. “You do have a little bit of an expectation — and especially with somebody who’s got essentially a bright future. He was planning a future. He always wanted a story to tell, some adventure. He was always either cracking a joke or wanting to talk about an adventure.”
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