June 2008, I logged on-line the name of my long-missing father who I barely knew. I believed the only thing of his that was mine, was his name. Something came onto the screen I had never seen before, a blurry facsimile of his death certificate. Some of it was legible. He died in San Francisco in 1970. That was a complete surprise. There was clearly more information on the screen image, but I couldn't make it out. Writing to the California Board of Health I requested a paper copy. They needed to know my relationship to the deceased. Writing in the word daughter in relation to my father was a unique experience. The paper certificate soon arrived. Everything on the document other than the date of his birth and his profession was a surprise. Suddenly I owned more than his name. When a parent goes missing how do we shape and fill the empty space? And how do we shape and create ourselves from our missing parents? A Pot from Shards, a memoir, explores absence, imagination, movement, dance, language, psychoanalysis, love, death and the creation of a life.
- | Author: Joan Wexler
- | Publisher: Ipbooks
- | Publication Date: May 20, 2019
- | Number of Pages: 264 pages
- | Language: English
- | Binding: Paperback
- | ISBN-10: 1949093328
- | ISBN-13: 9781949093322