Life experiences are a combination of the things that happen to us and the things we allow to happen. Every situation we encounter is an opportunity to learn. Sometimes the lesson is a matter of life or death. When we come into this world, we have no direction, goals or aspirations. It is the responsibility of our parents, and caretakers, to instill in us principles, ethics, and values. These should govern how we act, live, and treat each other. We need to be taught as children, how to say no and mean it; how to value who we are, and not allow another human being to make us feel unworthy.
Accompany author Shirley G. Steverson as she employs prose and poetry to express her sentiments, her life, and her thoughts. Feel the emotions in her poetic verses and see how she has accepted and understood the world around her. She says, “I do not look back on my life and feel sad. Other than some of the harrowing moments in this book, I had a good life, enjoying everything around me. I think it’s because I have this uncanny ability to store multiple events, deep in my mind, giving myself permission to retrieve them one at a time. This skill allowed me to go on living day to day. I also believe that God had other things in store for me. He gave me the gift of seeing the best aspects of a situation. Otherwise I should have become stark raving mad.”
The collection of chapters in Four Pieces of a Silver Coin is footprints along her journey of discovery. They have been written in the style of poems and short stories, which are not your typical style for a biography. She chose to write it like this as this is how they came to her as she was searching her memory. Writing them in the third person was easier for her to be true to the things that made her want to tell her story.