CLARAFIED BUTTER

Life for me has always been about addition. Being open, adding more and appreciating all the blessings that are introduced to me. From adding siblings to adding aunties, adding cousins, adding friends and eventually adding a husband. I love addition so much the only choice that made sense for me when I got married was adding his last name to mine, Brewer-Craig. When you get married the inevitable question you dread to hear as a couple is, 'When are you going to have a new addition?'. Apparently, I married a man who likes to add too, since  India Ellise was born a few weeks before our first anniversary. Israel Zion aka Izzy followed three years later, during a time of transition and grief. When he appeared in May I was deeply in mourning over my Mom. Most of that time I was focused on making it through the day, each 24 hour period had it's own challenges but focusing on India and Izzy got me through. Regretfully, to this day Izzy's milestones and accomplishments hav...

Much has been brought to my attention in the weeks since my last post. Mainly pertaining to the depressive tone my posts continue to take, even months into starting this blog. After some pause, an impromptu 'therapy' session with a close family member, and some much needed introspection I believe I see my reality a bit clearer. Yes grieving sucks! The process is draining and ongoing, but over time life should regain some semblance of normality. For me it was being able to notice the little things that my kids like to do. Both my daughter and son like to play with my arm fat! My daughter has an obsession with my breasts and upper arms. Some say it is because I breast fed her too long (23 months exactly), which I know to be bull because there is no such thing! But even when I'm sleep and she wakes before me, the first thing she goes for is my arm fat. She obsessively likes rubbing it like it's a lucky rabbit's foot or the Genie's lamp from Aladdin. The irony is...

I can't sleep. I just keep hearing his name in my head. Jordan Edwards , a 15 year old Black male, killed last week, by police after breaking up a house party in Texas. There have been countless before him and even a few who have been killed since. Not to mention the number of teenage youth that have gone missing in urban areas across our nation over the last year. Where there was once outrage, now there is mostly silence. Are we getting use to being diminished and decimated? Maybe it's that the tears have run dry and where rage once occupied our spirits, utter disbelief and self-preservation have been replaced. Self-care is a term that I've seen frequently. Ways to keep your sanity when everything around you seems to be unraveling, but when does hiatus become evasion? I see it in myself. I used to pay homage to the deceased by posting on my social media page the unofficial anthem of those lives that have been stolen from us far too soon, "Hell You Talmbout...

As I watch Oprah interview FLOTUS on television, I am reminded of those who serve as familiar spirits in my life. I use the term familiar spirits to identify those whose spirits remind me of my Mama and make me feel as if we would be friends if the opportunity ever presented itself. My Mama was my best friend. And I believed once I had my daughter, I was beginning to become hers.  We had a moment when I was ten. We were at her fifteen year college reunion and she touched my hand and said, "Im glad to be here with my best friend." And I proceeded to ruin that moment by saying that she wasn't my best friend, though I can't even recall who I gave the title to,  I had forever ruined that moment for her. She would bring it up every now and then when she wanted me to feel shame. But then she did something magical, she reclaimed that moment and turned it into a lesson. It became her moment of CLARity, she realized then that we could never be friends. I was her child and sh...

Nobody wants to know grief but it has a way of making your acquaintance when you least expect it. The thing I hate most about grief is how unpredictable it can be. Just when I think I've accepted this reality, the smallest thing can knock me off balance like it's happening all over again. It's a struggle every day for me. I still think in some way I am rebelling against this reality just by not taking care of me. It's a hard reality to get use to, especially since she was my world. When she passed, I lost the one with the power to knock the sense back into me when it gets lost in space. She was my physical moral compass, whose disappointment in my choices was so powerful it could will me to do better, with just a glance. Her presence, her face, her voice, had the power to keep me now that it's gone I am vulnerable. Exposed in a way that has changed me irreversibly. Others notice it, even if you don't. And if you don't recognize and adapt to these chang...

It has been a turbulent few weeks. Just when I would start to write about one topic something big would happen either in the news or at home to distract me but now that we're in this controversial, post-election political climate, one topic stands out that I feel the need to address.  The onslaught of racist and terroristic acts committed in the wake of the newly elected president, has been pretty horrific. From racial slurs being spray painted on homes and other property to violent attacks like beatings and even use of acid to maim a pizza delivery guy’s face. To say this election has brought out the worst in this country would be an understatement.                 Today, as part of my own escapism ritual, I was listening to my favorite podcast, The Read . On it, Kid Fury discussed the racism experienced by the students at The University of Pennsylvania. He expressed his outrage at not only the white perpetrators of the hate crimes...

Sitting here in my living room, watching my kids wreck the house despite my screams every few minutes for them to stop.  I wonder how my Mama did it.  I  had the fear of my Mama that my kids don’t seem to possess. I also didn’t have a father around so I knew she was the be all, end all to life as I knew it. I knew that very early on and it’s an awareness that I am grateful for now.  My Mama is no longer here for me to ask questions to and hear her homespun. responses that were tailor-made for my understanding. Yes, much like Forest Gump’s Mama, mine too knew how to effectively communicate with me without making me feel less than but fully capable and often inspired. As a Mama, I often feel like a wildlife photographer, just here to study and photograph my kids, being careful not to interfere with the natural order of things only in life or death situations do I dare intervene. Even when they cry, I remember writing in my book about hearing my kid...