In Loving Memory of
Hon. Sylvester Mondubue “Greg” Grigsby
October 15, 1950 – August 9, 2025
One year later, from his wife and daughters
One year ago today, we said goodbye to our husband and father, Sylvester Mondubue “Greg” Grigsby.
The world knew him as a statesman – a diplomat, a Minister of State, a proud son of Sinoe County who gave more than forty years of his life to the service of Liberia. We knew him as the man who came home. The one who carried cash in his pocket just so he could tip an Uber driver. The one who loved game shows and corrected the history in our television shows. The one whose laugh you could hear from the next room and never mistake for anyone else’s.
For fifty-one years, he was a husband. For all of our lives, he was our father. He crossed oceans and boarded late trains for us. He washed dishes, organized closets, and cooked corned beef and rice when one of us was unwell. He played monopoly with his grandchildren. He believed in showing up to show his love, and he showed up.
He lived by the wisdom of Gye Nyame – “Except for God.” However high he rose, he walked humbly. When he felt something was the right thing but it cost him something, he paid it in full and said, “Except for God, only God knows how this ends.” That was his faith and his guiding star, and it is the inheritance he left us.
A year has taught us that grief does not end; it simply learns to sit beside the love. We still reach for the phone. We still tell his stories, and we still laugh at them – because he would have insisted on the laughing. He hated tears.
He lives on in his friends, im his family, in the way he changed the lives of those who knew him. He lives on in family group chats, his old journals, the shirts we wear to remember him, letters and voicemails. He lives on in our dreams. He lives on in our hearts. He’s never far away.
We see him in the peace lily we keep watering; in the cactus plant growing and protecting the plants in the front yard; in the jewelry and perfume he gifted; in the fingerprint and pictures on the lockets we had made in his memory but it is not enough – we miss him. We miss his wit and intellect, his ability to talk about Greek classics and Liberian cultural treasures like Malawala Balawala in the same conversation, his voracious knowledge of geopolitics and pop culture but mostly his love.
To everyone who signed a book of condolence, wrote a tribute, sent a prayer, made a call, traveled a distance, continues to check in, or gave to the scholarship that now carries his name: thank you. You helped carry us through a year we could not have carried alone.
Daddy. Greg. Mister G. Papa G. Your presence has not left us, and it never will.
Forever proud to be yours,
Cleopatra Dudley Grigsby
Diana Grigsby
Scheagbe Mayumi “Umi” Grigsby
