In my blood is indeed an autobiographical story. But it reads like a novel, or let’s say a quest for identity, in parts downright suspense. Think: clues, revelations, drop by drop and over the pages, even a real twist, between several reflections on family, chosen links and other well-kept secrets (and lies).
Rebecca Makonnen has no literary ambition, she immediately clarifies in an interview. Her writing may be funny, her story gripping, historical references included, but she does not consider herself an author.
“I only had one story to tell,” she says. Namely: that of his parents. And indeed, what a story! There is no shortage of twists and turns, and they are not diminishing.
Without revealing anything, you should know that the presenter, in the media landscape for more than 20 years, from MusiquePlus to ICI Première, via ARTV, has always kept her past a little vague. Her (adulted) father was Ethiopian, her (adored) mother was from Quebec, she confined herself to asserting, all these years.
Basically: his parents, who loved each other on two continents, formed a unique and mixed couple. But that wasn’t exactly true.
“I had a great need for the truth. An urgent need for truth. And then a great desire to be useful.”
— Author Rebecca Makonnen
Basically, and this is the first twist: she is ultimately not her mother’s biological daughter, we learn, from the very first pages of the story. We won’t tell you more, but know that this is the starting point of an incredible story which was originally intended to be a tribute. Tribute to his parents, both deceased today, tribute to their love, between Africa and Canada, tribute to his family, in fact.
However, in this desire to return to the past, Rebecca Makonnen had no choice. It was necessary to “burst the abscess,” as she writes. “I was choking.” Hence her desire for truth, which will ultimately lead her (and the reader) to several shocking discoveries, some of which are very recent, which the author herself is still barely digesting.
Truth approach
Rebecca Makonnen says she is the result of “bullshit” or an “error of judgment”. (Martin Chamberland/Archives La Presse)
But let’s return to this first revelation: in her words, Rebecca Makonnen is the result of “bullshit” or an “error of judgment”, as she rather summarizes it, an explanation that she chose to explain this confessed infidelity of her father, and the infinite resilience of the one she always called her mother.
Her approach to the truth will undoubtedly surprise more than one person and she knows it. “But I’m the type of person who tears off his Band-Aid in one go,” explains Rebecca Makonnen, in an interview and on her social networks these days.
Please note: “I am not a mythomaniac, it was not a web of lies,” she specifies. More of a shortcut, as a defense mechanism.
“It was already hard to be the black child in a class, I didn’t want to have this improbable story to tell. […] And then it was so much simpler, less painful.”
— Author Rebecca Makonnen
“Less painful for me, but also for my mother,” she adds, always wondering how the latter was able to survive this infidelity, which Rebecca’s very existence could only remind her of. Hence the tribute, we will have understood.
No one ever hid anything from him either. The whole family knew. She always knew who her “father”, an Ethiopian, was, but never wanted to know more.
His intellectual curiosity for Ethiopia is even very recent. “It was painful and complicated,” she explains. But now I am interested in my culture, and I want to honor my origins!”
Clarification: these “omissions” were not the result of shame at being a 100% black person either, Rebekka Makonnen would like to emphasize here. “No way. It was the shame of this adventure, and of being born from this confessed adventure.” A kind of guilt for existing, let’s say.
“It’s as if for me, my mother had been stuck raising a child born from an affair with another woman! […] My poor mother! But how does she feel?
Has she ever asked him? “I don’t think so…” she blurted out. We understand that the subject was taboo, at least for her, and that she did not want to talk about it at the time. As proof: “I wanted to be my parents’ daughter,” she writes. This explains it: she did not want to be part of this other “clan”, however biological it might be.
Those who know her will no doubt understand better why Rebecca Makonnen never believed in blood ties. Neither really wanted children…
That said, nowhere in the story do we fall into judgment. Quite the opposite. Whether for her father, her mother or “this woman who gave birth to me”, as she says, Rebecca Makonnen did a real “empathy exercise […] so as not to judge the facts, the words said, or willful blindness.”
“It allowed me to have compassion for everyone.”
— Author Rebecca Makonnen
The exercise took her years and was “painful,” she says, and we understand why. But by publishing her story, she finally feels “liberated”. “The facade has fallen,” she argues, “and I feel a great relief.”
As unique and unprecedented as her story is, she knows that it risks touching many. “Family is complex. […] And then everyone has family secrets…”
Speaking of complexity, its latest discoveries (and not the least) are recent, as we have said. To this end, the text is in some way unfinished, since several questions and conjectures remain unanswered.
“But that’s enough,” she decides, anticipating our last question. This is all I can take for now…” We can’t help but hope: what’s next?
