Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future

by Patty Krawec

Grief is the persistence of love. It sees my ancestors in stalks of corn and hears them whisper when I pour wild rice through my hands. It fills my bag with nettles and reminds me to be gentle when I strip bark from larch or dogwood. Grief is the sound of thunder you feel deep in your chest, the lingering smell of sage hours after it is burnt. Grief is the forgetting of names. It does not know which place the ancestors’ feet last touched before leaving home forever. It looks back over shoulders and sees only darkness. Stolen lives means stolen history means no thread to pick up and follow home. Grief holds the accumulation of centuries in its hands and watches it turn to ash and then reaches out for more. Grief is consuming and consumed, an endless cycle of loss.

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