CLARAFIED BUTTER

I'm not sleeping well tonight. I am worried about my son. In the dream that woke me up, I'm in the back seat of the car, my uncle Darryl is driving and my aunt LaJuanda is sitting beside him. I was telling them about the stories Ma would regale me with starring my uncle Darryl as the smart little kid she adored. As I was finishing up, we parked next to a preschool. The children were lined up on the stairs. I notice my son is one of the kids. I observe that he is well-behaved and following directions, just like the other kids. His teachers call him down out of line and he comes down smiling, though he hasn't spotted me yet. He stops at the first teacher and shares his snack with her. Then he goes to the next teacher, and does the same. That teacher brings him to me, he offers me a square of his Chex mix, I accept and it was like suddenly, I was watching a play. The two teachers Izzy had greeted, were sitting at a picnic table directly in front of us. They were saying to eac...

Disclaimer: This is the most difficult post I have written. Revealing details about my Mama's death will be disclosed. Also I am not a professional therapist or counselor, anything remotely close to a helpful fact is just my opinion. August 10, 2013 the world stopped. At least it felt like it did. One moment I was fussing at my Mama. With her fading breath, she was professing her love to me and I wouldn't accept it as our finale. I actually said to her, "Shut up, I know that already, I love you too." Those were not what I thought my last words to her would be. I told her to fight to stay here, fight to be with me. And the next moment the medical staff was telling me she had passed. She fought as best she could to stay. But, I fought her passing by giving up. I wanted to be with her, the way we had always been. But I had yet to accept things were different.  The first four years, since her death, I have focused on the physical adjustment to my loss, like not get...

Mama and I were avid Gilmore Girls fanatics. The show was about the close relationship between a single mother and her daughter. To this day I don't know her true reasons for loving the show but I can guess she saw similarities in our relationship. My reasons for liking it were simple:  I liked the theme song and Ma really liked it. Any reason for us to have a weekly topic of discussion, I could never resist. Ma and I talked all the time, mostly about our day and current events but on Gilmore Girls days, I got to hear her speak enthusiastically about a show she loved. She loved it so much that we couldn't even be on the phone together while it was on television, she didn't want to be 'distracted' and potentially miss anything. We would speak before and after the show. Some of my fondest memories are of us singing the theme song together. We would belt it out to each other whenever we got the chance. "Where you lead, I will follow Any and everywhere that ...