Matriarch: Oprah's Book Club: A Memoir

by Tina Knowles

Later, a daughter will miss the sound of her mother calling her name. You can’t convince her of this when she is young. Not while that voice is so plentiful in the air. She hears her mother say her name over and over, whether as a command to pay attention or a plea to know her worth; a sigh of maternal love or a warning to be cautious. She cannot understand in those moments what she would someday trade to hear that voice again.

We all have this power to be matriarchs, to be women of the sacred practice of nurturing, guiding, protecting—foreseeing and remembering. The matriarch’s wisdom is ancient, for she is filled with the most enduring, ferocious love.

Mama had joined her mother, and her mother’s mother. She was now with all the mothers. The ones she could name under the pecan tree, and the ones who came before them. All of them watching over us.

The grief hit me so fast, caught me so unaware that I couldn’t run away from it. There in the bathroom, I doubled over as the realization finally gripped my heart, this thing I had known rationally but not fully accepted: My mom is not ever gonna be here for me to call.

I would not let fear dictate her destiny the way I felt my mother, despite her best intentions, had done to me. I could love my mother, call upon her strength in memory, and also learn from her what not to do.

I always tell people now that when their parents ask for them, go to them.

We just always turned the lemons into lemonade.

I let go of that resentment and gained a new understanding of my mother, and new perspective on her sacrifices—which helped me get to know me.