CLARAFIED BUTTER

"SHUT UP!" The words haunt me now. Much like the phrase that can still be found on t-shirts, "I can't breathe!" While she was on the gurney in the ambulance pleading for some help to breathe, I was pleading too, begging for someone to help her. The paramedic never did anything. He claimed the truck wasn't equipped. So once she gathered all the oxygen she could summon, her last words to me were, "I LOVE YOU!" As loud and as strong as I had ever heard the words from her mouth. It felt like a huge boulder being thrown at me, like she really needed me to know it. It took every ounce of strength out of her and I responded, "Shut up." It was practically whispered in comparison, but I promptly apologized and told her, "I love you too".  I just didn't want her to spare, precious breaths on a sentiment that I had felt my whole life. There isn't much that I know more than my Mama loves me. It's been the basis...

You know how when you read or hear something and you FEEL IT. You find a kind of contentment that you didn't even realize you needed. Simply because someone has found a way to express what you also feel. I remember first experiencing this in 2002, when I heard Lauryn Hill's song "I Gotta Find Peace of Mind". When Sis sang, "To finally be in love and know the real meaning of, a lasting relationship, not based on ownership, I trust every part of you 'cause all that you say, you do. You inspire me to be the higher me, you make my desire pure." I had never heard anything so beautiful in my life. I felt every part of these words and the fact that she was able to put them in a song, still mystifies me. So today when I read the words "visceral cellular loss" I lost it! A new way to express the anguish of the loss of my Mama. At this point it feels as if it's an all consuming event that has absolutely transformed, reshaped, overtaken, domi...