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Graciella-Sawyer
Originally published 4/18/2023 on Substack
CW: suicide.
Hey folks. This is obviously not my usual kind of post, but it was something I needed to write and share publicly. I’ve been working on this since December; I could only push it so far each day before I’d be overwhelmed with emotion and have to put it aside. Here are two news articles for background, one from channel3000.com and one from madison.com, as well as the obituary notice. Anyway, this isn’t what you came here for, so feel free to skip this post if you like. It’s 100% for me.
Dear Graciella-Sawyer,
Already, three words into this letter, and I’m slamming up against the whole point of what I’m trying to say. I think you would’ve liked that — you had a tendency to get straight to the point. But forgive me, I’m going to stall a bit. I’m not ready to get there just yet.
It pains me to admit that I don’t really remember when we first met. My family had just moved to Wisconsin and we got to know your family through Girl Scouts. I didn’t pay much attention at the time; we had uprooted from Seattle, away from friends I’d known for decades, and I was pissy about it. When your mom asked me to run D&D, I put it off as long as I could. I put it off until the potential joy of playing the game outweighed the decadent pleasures of feeling sorry for myself. Eventually, I caved. Of course I caved! It was D&D. But while I thought I’d agreed to simply play a game, it turned out to be a more important decision than just that.
You weren’t there for the first few sessions. My memory, a false one I choose to believe anyway, is that one evening I came over, set the game up on the dining room table as usual, and looked up to find you seated as if you’d always been there, smiling and ready to go. You were nine. We were in the middle of an adventure, and you introduced your character as someone the party rescued from a prison, a halfing druid named, of all things, “Magic Puff.” (I have to remember you were nine.)
That’s me DMing, and Graciella-Sawyer in green. I had to zoom in to figure out what was happening here: we were onboarding two new players (my daughter and Graciella-Sawyer’s sister) by introducing their characters having been chased up a tree by four ogres. (Photo: Dia Caulkins)
Over the next five years, I watched you grow up at the table. Funny thing is, you never really changed in that time. Right from the start, you were about upholding justice and protecting the weak. When the party captured some demons — literally, evil beings from Hell — you insisted on treating them with dignity and respect. When you learned that a corrupt city council installed a young girl as the chief magistrate in order to manipulate and control her, you started a petition to change the government. (This may have been the first petition ever circulated in a D&D game world.) Whenever there was a right thing to do, you stepped up, unhesitatingly. You were the heart of the party.
That’s why I can’t believe you’re gone.
It’s been nearly six months, and I still have to remind myself of this fact daily. When I visit your family, you won’t be there to greet me at the door. You won’t be at the table with Magic Puff anymore. When I toss off some half-thought nonsense into the game, you won’t be there to say “Wait.” and stop the game in its tracks because you instinctively honed in on contradictions and bullshit. Your family and I can’t play One Night Werewolf anymore, because that was your game and you were a genius at it. (You were a genius at it probably because you could instinctively hone in on contradictions and bullshit.) I will never see your joyful face again or see any more of your lovely drawings. I will never get another hug from you.
Graciella
And when I remember that none of this can happen anymore, a flush of anger passes through me. It’s anger at you, Graciella-Sawyer. The Graciella-Sawyer I knew wouldn’t harm anyone, yet you inflicted so much pain and misery on your family and loved ones. I’ve tried very hard to resolve that contradiction and I can’t. I wish you could see your mom and your brothers and your sisters and everyone else. Someone we loved with all their being was ripped from them, a hole torn in reality. We are devastated. You did that.
I understand that you were in pain. I get how you probably saw enough of the world to be disappointed at best, disgusted at worst. You’d be right to feel that. But there’s more to the world than just the terrible parts. Even if there wasn’t, of all the people I’ve known in my life, you were the one I would’ve bet money on to change the world for the better. You were too stubborn, too demanding, believed too hard in justice and fairness to take no for an answer. Am I selfish to say this, to talk about what you could’ve done for us? Fine. I’m selfish. Yet, you did take no for an answer, and it crushes me every time I think about it.
But for all my anger at you, I must redirect ten times that amount back at myself. I’ve stalled long enough — let’s go back to those first three words, back to the point of this letter. I didn’t know you went by Graciella-Sawyer; I only ever knew you as “just” Graciella. I did not know you went by they/them. I had no idea kids at school were tormenting you. (Maybe, in some ways, it’s best I didn’t know that last one. As someone who sits upon a mostly-dormant geyser of rage… if you didn’t like what Laura wanted to do to those captive demons, you would hate what I would do to bullies.) I remember when you got your short haircut. I complimented you on it — I feared you were self-conscious about it — but it only occurred to me recently that it might involve a question of gender presentation. And Graciella-Sawyer, I’m a dumb cis boy, so if it was about gender presentation, I had no clue what gender, if any, you were presenting. My point is that I realized belatedly that my compliment might have been supportive, or it could have caused you even more alienation. That I might have ladled more alienation on top of what you were already experiencing horrifies me. And that’s just the one moment I’m aware of; what of all the other moments I’m not aware of?
I deserve the brunt of my own anger because there was a whole other part of you that you were trying to express and I didn’t see it. Things about you I got wrong or blithely assumed, because, frankly, I took you for granted. “Oh, there’s Graciella, she’s so smart and kind,” I would think, but never think to actually say. You got lost in the human shuffle of my everyday life, and as such I never really saw you despite being right there in front of me. You deserved better.
I owe you so many apologies, Graciella-Sawyer. I am so, so sorry. I’m sorry I dragged my feet on Magic Puff’s petition and you will never see the fruits of it. I’m sorry I didn’t let you play Captain Sonar on our last game day together, despite knowing how much you wanted to. (Captain Sonar is like Anxiety: The Board Game for me, but that seems trivial now.) I’m sorry I got annoyed sometimes when you called “Wait.” at the D&D table. Most of all, I’m sorry because you were an amazing person but I didn’t tell you that. I didn’t realize time was running out for me to do so. Maybe that’s the lesson: time is always running out.
Graciella-Sawyer, I will miss you every day of my life.
Graciella
The National Suicide 24/7 Lifeline is 988, the Trans Lifeline is 877-565-8860, and the Trevor Lifeline is 866-488-7356. I would be remiss if I didn’t note that Graciella-Sawyer lived her life with the background static of transphobic hate being pushed across the country by Republicans. As I write this, state legislatures are criminalizing every aspect of trans life with the intent of wiping it out. Fortunately, that’s an impossible goal; unfortunately, so many people are going to be hurt and killed by this needless and stupid hate. I ask you to resist this deadly oppression by whatever means available to you. Erin Reed’s Erin in the Morning newsletter is a fantastic resource to keep up to date on these developments. Thanks.
