Well, this one’s a tearjerker…
Transcript
So this is my mama, Paula Beasley, on the day of her graduation. She was living in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and we were living in Pocahontas, Arkansas. My mom didn’t raise me. She was disabled from birth, so my granny raised me, Virginia Beasley.
She was looking very mysterious, a little mischievous here in this picture, which I really like. She didn’t look like this so often, but when I see this picture of her, I’m like, oh yeah, I’m definitely related to that lady.
The story tonight is actually about my grandfather, Paul. This is the first year Paul has been on the Dia de Muertos altar. He’s my beloved Uncle Joe’s brother. Uncle Joe was a big fixture in my life. My other uncles were a big deal as well, but I didn’t hardly know my grandfather. I put him on the table this year for the first time.
I’ve been working on forgiveness.
This is a hard story for me to tell.
I’ve been mad at my grandfather for a long time, and he’s been dead a long time. My particular cosmology is that when you die, you have a life review. He died, and he saw what he did, but I’ve still been holding in my body a lot of hatred, to be honest, because he cheated on my granny. When she divorced him, he disowned my mother, and my aunt, and me. He actually told his brother Joe he would disown him, too if he continued to have anything to do with us, but my uncle Joe told his brother what he could do with it. So Joe was still in my life.
[neighbor dogs barking]
Oh, the doggies, the doggies here. I think they’re upset by this story as well. So I was mad like them dogs, and I’m still partly mad, but I know it’s just poison in my bones.
Forgiveness is not a process I understand, but I am asking for the wisdom of it to move through me.
It felt like it was time for me to put him on my ofrenda for Dia de Muertos this year. When I did, I heard him say, “thank you,” and I started crying. My guides said to me today that those on the other side love us unconditionally, even when we hate them.
Because I know it wasn’t his soul, it was his personality that did these horrible things. His soul has to do its work, and he’ll move through this in a different way in the next go-round. So I honor his time here. I honor his making my mama so I could come to this earth and be who I am, and I say thank you.
So that’s my story for Muertos 2025. Sending y’all love wherever you are.
