Inheritance of Grit: A Metaphorical Memoir of a Daughter's Resilience, Determination, and Grace

I grew up poor. My father abandoned us by committing suicide when I was nine-years-old. But he had left us before that with his addictions consuming whatever potential he had to be a good father. Before I graduated high school, I also lost my brother and my mother, who I loved with all of my broken heart. I was left alone in the world. I learned to survive, to thrive, and to understand and forgive my father decades later by researching the man he was and how he came to be that way. Inheritance of Grit is a literary memoir about the value of your blood family. Beth grew up in extreme poverty and suffered the early loss of every one of her immediate family members. Through memories of childhood, family stories, grief, rediscovered history, and reflection, Beth revisits the complicated man at the center of so much of her life: her father. A man shaped by addiction, poverty, pride, anger, and the hard expectations of another generation, her father was neither a monster, nor a saint. For years, Beth sought to understand who he really was.