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Pebbles and Shards

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Date Issued:
2013
Abstract/Description:
Pebbles and Shards is a collection of personal essays based on family relationships that focus upon motherhood, responsibility, and the complexity of love and loss. The essays explore how people cope with the inevitability of loss and how they move beyond that loss to find something meaningful, perhaps even beautiful. They reflect upon success and failure in the face of loss and how, either way, life goes on, heedless of people's desires and plans.The essays in Pebbles and Shards, while meant to stand alone, are thematically connected so that, read together, each story resonates with the others. In (")Promises,(") I explore the fear of watching my mother die of Alzheimer's disease. In related essays (")Frame by Frame(") and (")In Darkness,(") I focus on my mother's efforts to struggle with Alzheimer's and how, as an adopted daughter, I underwent a role-reversal and became the mother figure. Other essays, such as (")Heart of a Deadhead(") and (")Circus,(") consider the mothering impulse, especially the guilt and conflict that so often accompany my desire to nurture others. In attempting to support and strengthen those who seem (")weak,(") I have sometimes found that my own actions and thoughts underscore a deeper weakness in myself.As a collection, Pebbles and Shards contemplates the suffering and joy that is a family.
Title: Pebbles and Shards.
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Name(s): Kindle, Edith, Author
Bartkevicius, Jocelyn, Committee Chair
Uttich, Laurie, Committee CoChair
Rushin, Patrick, Committee Member
, Committee Member
University of Central Florida, Degree Grantor
Type of Resource: text
Date Issued: 2013
Publisher: University of Central Florida
Language(s): English
Abstract/Description: Pebbles and Shards is a collection of personal essays based on family relationships that focus upon motherhood, responsibility, and the complexity of love and loss. The essays explore how people cope with the inevitability of loss and how they move beyond that loss to find something meaningful, perhaps even beautiful. They reflect upon success and failure in the face of loss and how, either way, life goes on, heedless of people's desires and plans.The essays in Pebbles and Shards, while meant to stand alone, are thematically connected so that, read together, each story resonates with the others. In (")Promises,(") I explore the fear of watching my mother die of Alzheimer's disease. In related essays (")Frame by Frame(") and (")In Darkness,(") I focus on my mother's efforts to struggle with Alzheimer's and how, as an adopted daughter, I underwent a role-reversal and became the mother figure. Other essays, such as (")Heart of a Deadhead(") and (")Circus,(") consider the mothering impulse, especially the guilt and conflict that so often accompany my desire to nurture others. In attempting to support and strengthen those who seem (")weak,(") I have sometimes found that my own actions and thoughts underscore a deeper weakness in myself.As a collection, Pebbles and Shards contemplates the suffering and joy that is a family.
Identifier: CFE0004704 (IID), ucf:49813 (fedora)
Note(s): 2013-05-01
M.F.A.
Arts and Humanities, English
Masters
This record was generated from author submitted information.
Subject(s): Essay -- Motherhood -- Alzheimer's Disease -- Family -- Child Abuse
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004704
Restrictions on Access: campus 2018-05-15
Host Institution: UCF

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