Happy September, my friend! I want to kick off this month with my most impactful read from August: Becoming a Matriarch by Helen Knott.
In her first book, In My Own Moccasins: A Memoir of Resilience, Helen Knott shared her truths in living with addiction, drug abuse and mental health and intergenerational trauma. When I read it in 2021, it gave me a new understanding of life and I knew it won’t be the last time I pick up Helen’s books. I expected her to write again and I am so honored to receive a review copy of the book from the publisher. Take a look at what this book is about and then read on for my thoughts:
Becoming a Matriarch
By Helen Knott | Goodreads
When matriarchs begin to disappear, there is a choice to either step into the places they left behind, or to craft a new space.
Helen Knott’s bestselling debut memoir, In My Own Moccasins , wowed reviewers, award juries, and readers alike with its profoundly honest and moving account of addiction, intergenerational trauma, resilience, and survival. Now, with her highly anticipated second book, Knott exceeds the highest of expectations with a chronicle of grief, love, and legacy. Having lost both her mom and grandmother in just over six months, forced to navigate the fine lines between matriarchy, martyrdom, and codependency, Knott realizes she must let go, not just of them, but of who she thought she was.
Woven into the pages are themes of mourning, sobriety through loss, and generational dreaming. Becoming a Matriarch is charted with poetic insights, sass, humour, and heart, taking the reader over the rivers and mountains of Dane Zaa territory in Northeastern British Columbia, along the cobbled streets of Antigua, Guatemala, and straight to the heart of what matriarchy truly means. This is a journey through pain, on the way to becoming.
Through writing, reflecting, and dreaming I found my way to the real lessons.
I found permission to become whoever I needed to be.
I found permission to live a life and not just endure it.
I found permission to belong deeply to myself.
I found permission to lay to rest the sorrow of the women before me and to cultivate joy for us in its place.
Content notes include death, grief, death of parent, cancer, addiction, alcoholism, domestic abuse
Becoming a Matriarch – Review
Becoming a Matriarch is a deep dive into how we handle loss and grief. Helen lost her mom and grandma within less than a year of each other. In Becoming a Matriarch she takes responsibility as the oldest woman in her family and comes to terms with how much her amazing women ancestors did for her. She wonders if she can find the strength to keep going and support everyone else when she is herself struggling to find her footing in life.
No one told me that such a big part of being an adult was learning how to lose and figuring out how to make yourself whole again in the face of those losses.
Helen Knott, Pg 110, Becoming a Matriarch
There are many beautiful stories about family road trips, deathbed conversations and experiences of seeking and finding healing within these pages. Helen, in her evocative, concise, brutally honest and lyrical writing, brings together so many emotions and thought-provoking ideas about living when all the people who were our strongest support systems are gone. After her mom’s death, she recognizes the power of stories and experiences and starts writing what her grandma tells her, becoming a memory keeper.
We are walking memory, in all the ways that make us beautiful and in all the ways that make us beasts.
Helen Knott, Pg 91, Becoming a Matriarch
Helen recognizes the importance of small moments and everyday joy. She finds opportunities to learn more about her culture and learns to let the people around her experience grief in their own way, without expecting more from herself or others. I loved Helen’s thoughts on dreams, the intergenerational joy that comes from knowing our ancestors as well as the network of support that she has in her extended family and friends. She reflects on who she thinks she should be compared to who she wants to be. She is on a journey to be kinder to herself and I loved being on this journey with her.
I read Helen’s first memoir, In My Own Moccasins back in 2021. While it was good to know Helen’s experiences from the first book, to me Becoming a Matriarch stands as its own work.
Becoming a Matriarch came to me as a pivotal moment. I read it on Amma’s death anniversary. Her and my aunt were my unconditional supporters, the sort of relationship Helen has with her mom and grandma, and I am grateful to have so many cherished memories with them. I related Helen’s desire to want to talk to her mom and grandma, and through her words, found myself thinking of my favorite people who are no longer around. We have both found ways to keep them in our lives.
I have been learning to hold memory without carrying the weight of it.
Helen Knott, Pg 97, Becoming a Matriarch
During my teaching degree, I took a course about indigenous history and cultures. In one of my favorite seminars, I learned about knowledge keepers. Below, I am appending the reflection I wrote about the topic. Though mostly centered around knowledge keepers and teaching, memory is also knowledge and we are all memory keepers in that way.
If you are experiencing grief, I highly recommend checking out What is Your Grief? This is an amazing community with occasional newsletters and a lovely book of lists.
Thanks for visiting today. 🙂 Do you plan to read this book? Add it to your Goodreads. I am happy to share my copy with you, should we live close by! 🙂
What’s an indigenous memoir that you have adored? Tell me in the comments!
September 30th is National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. I love the timing of sharing about this book with you this month. The Non-Fiction feature is another indigenous book which is absolutely amazing. Review out September 4th.
The Essay by Kriti
December 2017
I have imagined teachers to be the ones who share their knowledge about the subject matter with their students, not only helping them know the topic better and understand it but also witness the journey the students take and what they do with this knowledge. My readings and class discussions in my Indigenous history and cultures class have added another dimension to this view.
Elder is the term we use to refer to persons who have knowledge and who guide the community. Alberta Education(2009) says the following about Elders “it is their guidance that Cree people seek as they strive for balance in all relationships.” The Elder is recognized by the community and understands the traditions and culture, including the spiritual and social traditions. In Cree, the word for an Elder is Kihteyayak.
All Elders are knowledge keepers. Additionally, there are also knowledge keepers who are not Elders. These knowledge keepers might specialize in medicine, history, dance forms, rituals, etc. Rocky Morin, who visited my class last week, described the role of knowledge keepers as sharing information and passing it on. Knowledge keepers are responsible for being a wealth of knowledge, yet, their main task being to not keep this knowledge, but to give it away to other people.
I found this concept of sharing and giving away what we know prevalent in another reading that did not even relate to teachers. Thomas (2001) in her letter to her daughters mentions a quote from an author she likes, “Most of the things you do, if you do them right, are for people who live long after you are forgotten. That will only happen if you give it away… whatever it is that you know, give it away.” Though her letter focused on her experiences of noticing discrimination against black people and the privilege she realized that she had as a white person, by mentioning this quote, she encourages her daughters to do their best in addressing the discrimination they see and changing the view of people who they can influence.
The fact that most of what we do lives longer than us and is for generations after us, is a powerful concept. First Nations cultures recognize that in their oral tradition of passing information and knowledge. Stories about legends, spiritual truths and history of the people, day to day activities and daily events are told to students so that they can learn holistically and within the same extended family, pass them on.
Whatever we do and believe in, what we experience says something about our view of the world. Even if we do not tell a child what he has to do, by knowing the actions that we performed, he will know what we think he should do, unless we say it otherwise. Knowledge is not just in words. It also has implicit meaning that is conveyed in emotions and body language. If we stand up against discrimination and share that with our children, they are likely to do the same unless somewhere along the lines their experiences shape them otherwise.
As teachers, we play the role of knowledge keepers of not just our subjects but also of the values of the society. We convey to our students what is right and wrong, sometimes in the form of praise, sometimes as expressing dissatisfaction. We pass on the values of the system and our specialized areas to the students we teach. What we teach does get passed on to later generations. When I was in school, my mom could still help me with my subjects. She might not have earned a graduate degree in what I was learning, but she had gone through school too and was able to help me when I had problems. In this way, the knowledge her teachers shared with her class, came back to me and I will in turn share the values and knowledge I learned from my teachers and my parents with my students and my children. This cycle will continue on.
Each of us possesses a great wealth of knowledge about something. A graduate degree does not certify that you know everything about it, it just means that you took the time to study a part of it in depth. My journey has been about computing science as well as about education. What I learnt about computing science, what helped, what did not help, as well as about teaching and learning, how to learn better, how to concentrate, different styles of teaching and learning, how to be organized, are all little things that I will pass on to my students and children at the right time in the form of stories of how I got there. Though ‘teacher’ is not a translated word, it still portrays a vast depth of meaning. Thus, we are all knowledge keepers, teachers especially, and sometimes, to really understand something or someone, there are other dimensions that one needs to look at.
References:
- Alberta Education (2009). Cree language and culture 12-year program guide to implementation: grade 4 to grade 6. Retrieved from https://education.alberta.ca/media/563937/cree-12y-guide-to-implementation-4-6.pdf
- Thomas, B. (2001). Learning from discomfort: A letter to my daughters. In C. James & A. L. Shadd (Eds.). Talking about Identity: Encounters in race, ethnicity and language., pp. 193-211.
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