Matariki, Memory and the Many Meanings of Family

Matariki feels especially significant to me this year.

In New Zealand, Matariki is a time to pause, reflect, remember those who have passed, and look toward the year ahead.

On June 1st, my biological father passed away. With his passing, both of my biological parents are now gone. Yes, I’m adopted, so that sentence carries more than one layer. 

Adoption can create a particular relationship with identity, memory and belonging. There is the family you come from biologically, and there is the family that raises you, shapes you, supports you and stands beside you through life. My adoptive parents are still alive, and I remain deeply grateful for them.

But this Matariki, I find myself reflecting on the full shape of family. The people who gave me life. The people who raised me. The people who are gone. The people who remain.

Grief is not always simple. Sometimes it arrives with sadness, sometimes with curiosity, sometimes with gratitude, and sometimes with questions that do not need to be answered immediately.

Perhaps that is why Matariki feels so meaningful. It gives us permission to sit with memory. To honour those who came before us. To acknowledge loss without rushing past it. To look at our lives with a wider lens.

This year, I am thinking about connection, identity and gratitude. I am thinking about the lives that made mine possible. I am thinking about family not as one simple definition, but as something layered, human and deeply personal.

And I am reminded that reflection is not about having all the answers.

Sometimes it is enough to pause, remember, give thanks, and look toward the next season with a little more understanding of where we have come from.