Embracing What Remains

Embracing What Remains is the story of a daughter and her father. Andrea, a mother of three young children, and Richard, a 65-year-old recently retired surgeon, begin to spend more time together and share a connection that Andrea had longed for her whole life. When Richard is diagnosed with a devastating and terminal disease only two short years into retirement, Andrea's dream of the future with her father is crushed. Through witnessing her father decline into the depths of Alzheimer's, Andrea learns to balance motherhood with daughterhood in a new light. Watching her father transform from doctor to patient affects Andrea in unexpected ways as she copes with mourning a man who is still here. Through tears, frustration, laughter, irony, and surprising joy, Andrea embarks on a journey to love and accept and, most of all, embrace this New Dad. Andrea and her family discover how to navigate the ups and downs of a disease that steals memories all the while providing hope from the lasting ones that remain.

In the wake of addressing multiculturalism, transculturalism, racism, and ethnicity, the issue of xenophobia and xenophilia has been somewhat marginalized. The present collection seeks, from a variety of angles, to investigate the relations between Self and Other in the New Literatures in English. How do we register differences and what does an embrace signify for both Self and Other? The contributors deal with a variety of topics, ranging from theoretical reflections on xenophobia, its exploration in terms of intertextuality and New Zealand/Maori historiography, to analyses of migrant and border narratives, and issues of transitionality, authenticity, and racism in Canada and South Africa. Others negotiate identity and alterity in Nigerian, Malaysian, Australian, Indian, Canadian, and Caribbean texts, or reflect on diaspora and orientalism in Australian–Asian and West Indian contexts.

The author of several books on mental training shows readers how to achieve excellence in performance as well as excellence in living. Illustrations.