For years, the elder Abraham had carved a niche for himself as a master showman, known primarily for his comedic antics, famously declaring in an insecticide commercial, “Det kill dem dead.” But up until his death on May 16, reportedly from complications relating to Alzheimer’s disease, the clergyman’s connection to the endearing calypsonian remained largely, a little-known fact.
And for those who did know that he was Brigo’s son, it seemed a remote possibility, Abraham, 46, said in a Sunday Newsday interview at the Regional Seminary, Mount St Benedict, on Thursday.
“A lot of people were not aware,” he said of the response of many mourners to the news that Brigo was his father, after last Monday’s funeral at the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception, Portof- Spain.
“Some people knew but I realised on that day that a lot of people did not know. They were coming up to me and asking, ‘You are Brigo’s son.’” Abraham said, though, his father never missed a beat in telling people that one of his sons was a priest.
He said members of the Catholic community also knew of his journey into the religious life after it was publicised in the print media about a decade ago.
“It was in the newspapers in 2007 when I was ordained a deacon and in 2008 when I was ordained a priest,” Abraham said.
Abraham recalled that years before, in 1999, late Archbishop Anthony Pantin also told a Catholic conference in Miami about his decision to enter the priesthood.
“There was a special conference every year in Miami and that year, he knew that I was going to enter the Regional Seminary, and at the conference, he said, ‘Just imagine, even Brigo’s son is going to become a priest.’ Trinidadians there were in uproar.” Days after administering final rites on his father, Abraham said he was shocked by reports which claimed that Brigo had fathered 36 children. “That is not accurate,” he declared, laughing. “He has ten children, seven with my mother and then he had three with Lynette Huggins (deceased). So, I don’t know where they got that 36 from.
“In his life, I don’t know if he had other children. My hope is that if there are 36, the others will come forward at some point.” Abraham said although his father told them about the three children he shared with Huggins, they only got to meet them late in their lives.
A priest at Our Lady of Mount Carmel on the island of St John, Virgin Islands, with responsibility for Catholic renewal and youth, Abraham grew up in Freedom Street, Pinto Road, Arima.
He described his father as the greatest storyteller.
“He was big on these sayings, ‘If crab know his back not strong he should not go below rock’ and ‘What sweet in goat mouth does sour in the bam bam.’ As a child, you always were excited to hear the stories that daddy will tell,” he said, adding his father also brought gifts for them from his many travels abroad.
Abraham said many people also did not know the late calypsonian was an excellent cook. “I don’t think the nation knows but some of his close calypsonian friends who travelled with him knew and we always looked forward to daddy’s cooking, even more than mummy’s. He had that sweet hand.” Blessed with a big heart, Abraham said his father always exhibited unconditional love for people from all walks of life, especially the poor man.
He recalled that one time, during a performance in Guyana, Brigo befriended a man named Wilbert Williams, who expressed an interest in visiting Trinidad.
“My dad simply said, ‘Fine, I am going to help you.’ He came for two weeks and spent about 15 years living at our home. That was the kind of man Brigo was.” His father, he said, also was a disciplinarian “I didn’t like it one bit but he was big on respect,” Abraham joked.
“One of the stories he would always tell us is about this mother and son. The mother did not discipline the child who was Death Row for a series of crimes.” “The child called the mother and said he had something to tell her and when she came, the child bit her on the ear, saying, ‘Mummy, if you had disciplined me, I would have never been here.’ “Daddy used that to say, ‘I am not sparing the rod and spoiling the child.” Although he had kept in touch with Brigo during his many years of ministering in the Virgin Islands, Abraham it was only when he returned for a month-long visit, last October, that he witnessed, first hand, the extent of his father’s physical deterioration.
In fact, during the funeral, he called on calypsonians to look out for one-another, suggesting the offering be used to assist the artform’s ailing exponents.
Abraham said he learnt at the funeral that another well-known calypsonian, Black Stalin (Leroy Caliste), would have been at the service, if he was not ill.
“He would have loved to be there.” Abraham said he had planned to make a special presentation to Stalin’s wife, Patsy, at the Trinbago Unified Calypsonian’s Organisation’s (TUCO) tribute to his father, last Thursday night at Kaiso Blues Caf?, Woodford Street, Newtown The presentation, he said, would have been a symbolic gesture to celebrate artistes who have contributed to the development of the artform but would have fallen on hard times in one form or another.
Saying he told TUCO president Lutola Masimba (Brother Resistance) that his father had sacrificed his family for calypso, Abraham said he was deeply pained by the treatment that was meted out to him within the last few years.
“My mother sacrificed so much to raise us when daddy was not there and then to be treated like that. I spent a month with my father in October and only one man came to see him – Funny (Donrick Williamson),” he said. “TUCO also looked out for him. But there was so much that was needed.” Saying the experience was an eye-opener, Abraham has since resolved to move steadfastly in preserving his father’s legacy, a process which began years ago.
He told Sunday Newsday that while studying for the priesthood, he had done a thesis celebrating Brigo’s work.
“I think getting into my father’s music really helped me appreciate him and that was a real eye-opener because sometimes in the Christian eye people see calypso as evil,” he said.
“But when I really entered his songs, I realised that my father was very spiritual and that he was the one who taught me about spirituality. That, for me, was very important.” The priest said he learnt that his father also was a prophet.
“As I listen more and more to his music, the man was a prophet in the artform.” He said one of the judges who spoke at the tribute also had seen his father in this light.
“He apologised, saying that when daddy sang Green Lime in the tent, they did not understand the depth with which he was singing,” Abraham said of the judge.
“I also learnt that every night when he sang that song, daddy wept because I guess he was seeing the direction in which the nation was headed and he was feeling it. So, that made it very powerful.” Abraham began studying for the priesthood at age 19 but his journey to the religious life started years before, through a series of turbulent experiences which culminated in him trying to commit suicide.
“In my early years, with the brunt of life and daddy not being there, at the age of 16, I attempted suicide,” he recalled.
Abraham said although his father and relatives had visited him at the Port-of- Spain General Hospital, the response of two nurses to his suicide attempt touched him deeply.
“One of them looked very frightened and she came to me and said, ‘Mr Abraham, there is someone who loves you and his name is Jesus.’” The other nurse, he remembered, spoke to him about how God was able to see her through a personal crisis.
“That stirred my heart.” After his ordeal, Abraham said he left school and went to Grenada for some time “but when I came back, I knew that something was missing.” Abraham said a visit to the Word of Life Ministries, Green Street, Arima, transformed his life phenomenally.
“I did a Life In the Spirit seminar there and that changed my entire life.” Drawing parallels between his life and the problems young people often encounter, Abraham told Sunday Newsday: “I am not ashamed to share my testimony.
I understand what people go through in a really deep way.” He later recalled walking into the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception to find out more about the priesthood.
“(The priest) gave me the qualifications, which were five O’Levels. But I had three at the time. And I began doing the work that was necessary to the point where I eventually entered. But before I entered, I had a youth group in the Santa Rosa RC Church in Arima and attended a mission to St Croix and Martinique.” He said while in St Croix, a priest invited him to return to do missionary work there. Abraham said he left local shores some 18 years ago for the Virgin Islands “because at that time I felt I was more needed there.” “I remember in my journey recognising that I am loved by God and created for a purpose.” Moving ahead, Abraham has decided to preserve his father’s legacy and support ailing artistes through the establishment of the Brigo Cultural Theatre.
“Helping artistes who are sick, I want to be instrumental in doing that because of my experience with my dad and the aloneness that I have seen him experience.
It has fired me up to really help. That is the work that I do in the Virgin Islands – helping those in need.” Asked about his greatest challenge as a priest, Abraham said: There is a scarcity of priests now. There is serious work to be done because priests now are overworked.” He said many people also do not realise that priests are human beings.
“There is a selfishness in us as human beings that it is always about me and we are not thinking about other persons.
“In Brigo’s calypsoes, he highlighted that, love for God, love for neighbour, because that is what Jesus preached.
“You take nothing with you when you die. In spite of that big dream house that one might have, at the end of the day, you stand before God alone.” In the interim, Abraham said he will be in Trinidad until the end of the month.
He said the family will meet in New Jersey within the ensuing months to discuss other ways to celebrate Brigo’s legacy.
