Reconciling My Letter-writing Grief Ritual for a Once Grandfathered Girl Who Misses Pappy
Some know that discovering my ex's betrayal forced me to reckon with how I had long thought about Pappy, the maternal grandfather who raised me.
Despite the unconditional love he showered me with, I have had to confront how Pappy was a far from ideal partner to my beloved grandmother given how their marriage was littered with cycles of his womanizing and gaslighting.
As I came to understand that my ex only ever loved to exploit me, it made me question how my grandfather could have actively harmed my grandmother with his womanizing and gaslighting while claiming to love her for decades.
As Father's Day approaches, I am reflecting on Pappy's legacy as both the man who raised me with unconditional love that made me feel safe to speak truth to power, as well as the man who violated his marriage vows on a regular basis, all the while, denying it, when confronted by my grandmother."
Especially if you have read my earlier Disability Justice Work Must Include Holding Space for Grief newsletter post, you know how strongly I feel about reckoning with our grief to ensure that we do not fail folx we claim to love.
Upon discovering my ex's betrayal, I thought a great deal about the late maternal grandmother who raised me, since she dealt with Pappy's betrayals of her and their marriage with his many cycles of womanizing and gaslighting.
From September 2024 till now, I have periodically written notes to my late grandmother to feel close to her while trying to process my overwhelming grief over my ex's violations. In stark contrast, I have not written about Pappy much, as it has been challenging to separate his violations of her from the beloved grandfather who loved me unconditionally, but I should rectify that.
Dear Pappy,
I now question whether you are looking down at me from above, like I know Grams is, or gazing up at me from down below, but it has been comforting to consider that whether I end up in heaven or hell, I will at least have one of the beloved maternal grandparents who raised me in the afterlife..."
Having shared this insight with a dear fellow fat BIPOC LGBTQIA+ disabled friend, they questioned how you might feel about me damning you to hell, which prompted me to clarify that it was ALL on you if you ended up there.
That discussion also had me reflecting on how I do not tend to worry about alienating you as I once locked you out of your own house in Marabella after you came home too late. Especially since Grams was complaining throughout the night about how you were at the other woman's house, I felt justified in locking the door in your face when you finally bothered to show up.
In retrospect, I can appreciate that part of why you barely made a fuss as you proceeded to sleep in the hammock downstairs was that you expected that I would be persuaded to let you in the door by morning, with Grams' cajoling.
You died before I even turned 10, so over these decades, I had come to believe that when we reunited in the afterlife, I would teach you about how to counter misogyny, anti-Blackness, ableism, etc. as you knew a great deal as the 1st Trinidadian navigator, but likely still had loads to learn about embodying anti-oppressive practice."
Since confronting your legacy as a man who did not love my grandmother how she deserved, I have begun to consider that if you had lived beyond 1995, we may not have remained as close, as I likely would have increasingly spoke truth to power to you in ways that may have alienated you, especially if you were unwilling to unpack your complicity with the patriarchy that harms me.
As you know, my essay about you poured out of me after the 1st time white supremacy hijacked my career, but the words have not come as easily since seeing how my ex's betrayal mirrored yours of my beloved grandmother.
Even as I navigate complicated feelings about you, I still know all the ways that being raised by you makes me the Disability Justice practitioner I am. I know that you never said "mutual aid" once, but I grew up with a revolving door of relatives in our home as you supported many by housing them, just as you went from fishing all day to sharing the best of what you caught with villagers.
Just as Trintoc had only ever brought white men from England to work as navigators before you became the 1st Trinidadian navigator let me know that although you may not have used the words "white supremacy" once, you could never have aspired to occupy that navigator position only before held by colonizers had you not fundamentally opposed the notion of white supremacy!"
Unfortunately, white supremacist workplace trauma struck again since I read 450+ books to get through 2017 when my social work career was 1st hijacked. And maybe if it was just that, I might be okay, but surviving that alongside my ex's betrayal, while contending with more exacerbated migraines in the aftermath of COVID-19 has left me the most disabled I have ever been.
Given my background as a therapist, I understand how your firstborn daughter's abandonment of me for a man contributed to making me the easiest of marks for my ex. Had I not known what it was like to be failed by most relatives after the accident that would total my car, fracture my wrist, and sprain my ankle at 21, I likely would not have dug a deeper financial hole for myself each time he shared a need, knowing the desperation of financial precarity well enough to have completed grad school without a laptop to call my own or textbooks that were not illegally photocopied out of necessity."
I refrain from asking about Vishnu's relationship with gambling, but I suspect your earlier insults about him eating horse shit when he gambles at the racetracks may apply, as he still fails to keep his promises. And having been fathered by you for a decade, nurtured in your unconditional love and Grams', I have yet to get used to tolerating the utter failures of "parents" who remain.
I know that most cannot relate to the regret of trusting in someone who drained them of $183,364 over 6.5 years, but that cannot be the case for the man who raised me, all the while yelling from the rooftops about how your entire estate was meant for your favourite grandchild, only to regret trusting in your firstborn daughter to prioritize her firstborn daughter over Mr. Man."
Since Ava pulled her last power trip on me, before I depleted my retirement savings for survival, I have comforted myself with the knowledge that you would never have been complicit in my suffering in the name of "tough love," which is in stark contrast to the disappointment of a daughter you raised, but I know that you would be proud of how I live my values, even better than you.
Given how young I was when you passed, I would not yet have known how soul crushing it was to try to exist in predominantly white spaces, but now I wonder if the reason you went to the rum shop every evening after work might have been about colonizer bosses who failed to see your humanity the same way their cousins on Turtle Island have long failed to see mine throughout my career."
As you may know, my professional expertise complements my lived experience of oppression such that I can make connections to Disability Justice that illuminate the necessity of the framework of 10 principles, but my inability to scrounge together enough paid work to survive my ex's abuse is why I may get to discuss all this with you directly soon enough in the afterlife.
Until then, I will keep fighting, as I have throughout my life, as I need to know I did everything possible to work for equitable outcomes for all, as we have long deserved, and when I get discouraged, I try to reflect on Sins Invalid's insights:
While we grieve what has been lost, we also celebrate we who remain, and struggle towards what is yet-to-be. Disability justice is a vision and practice of this yet-to-be, a map that we create with our ancestors and our great grandchildren onward, in the width and depth of our multiplicities and histories, a movement towards a world in which every body and mind is seen as valuable and beautiful."
Depending on when you read this, I may have already resorted to a medically assisted death given my inability to survive Makai Livingstone's Access Intimacy Abuse, so if able to help me avoid that outcome, please do so below.
If able to contribute to my survival following my ex's financial abuse of at least $183,364, which further disabled me, alongside white supremacist workplace trauma, e-transfers within "Canada" may be sent to krystaljagoo@gmail.com and funds may be sent via PayPal below, so please consider supporting me! 🙏🏾
BTW, on the off chance that you are looking for a gifted equity practitioner and educator for virtual services like writing, facilitation, and consulting, you are welcome to peruse my CV below, and explore paid services here.
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