Jesse Thistle wrote a superb memoir, From the Ashes, where he talked about the trauma he struggled with throughout his life as an addict. Throughout the story, Jesse finally finds himself in his heritage and decides he needs to make a change or else he is going to die. Jesse faced a lot of traumas at an early age; Jesse was abandoned, starved, and watched his dad do drugs. These were only a few of the traumas he faced at an early age as a result, he followed in his dad’s footsteps. Eventually, Jesse learned to heal and re-claim his heritage and make amends with his family. Throughout the book, Jesse’s trauma affects his actions, which therefore motivated him to reclaim his heritage and become a better person.
When Jesse was only three,
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“Dad let go of the belt, moaned, and toppled off the edge of the toilet” (Thistle 22). Jesse saw his dad taking drugs and then falling off the toilet due to them. Jesse did not understand what was happening. He was told “it’s a man-made hornet, and that kids shouldn’t play with it because they’d end up getting stung by accident” (22). Because of this trauma and the life, he lived because Jesse’s dad went down that path and Jesse went down the same path doing drugs and putting himself in danger. Jesse wrecked his relationship with his grandparents when his grandma found drugs in his room after they fell out of his jacket pocket. His grandpa warned him if he did drugs that would be it, so he got kicked out and everything got worse he was trying new drugs and getting drunk and ruining his life and his relationships with his brothers because he would not stop being stupid. It was not until much later that Jesse realized he needed to get help. Jesse reclaimed his heritage when he went to rehab and finished his GED and then later went on to university and Jesse took a class in university called Indigenous history. At the end he says, “I remember them. I remember my mother’s people. I remember who I was” (330). He reclaimed his heritage and that all together healed him as a