Description 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.
