Bright Star by Diane Barbarash

Young souls are fragile little birds, the kind whose beauty you surrender to but cannot ever touch.

Venice Winnifred Holly was my mother, born in Portsmouth County, England. Moving to Canada was, as I understood it, a way to escape the sadness and trauma of her childhood. Having already legally changed her name to Ann Rosslyn Munro and expertly losing the British accent (except when the subject of the Queen came up) she was succeeding in that regard. When she married my father she converted to Judaism and was given a Hebrew name, Miriam. Suffice to say Venice Winnifred Holly quickly became a distant memory.

Several years after my parents’ divorce, Ann became Sharon, a name she had previously hand-picked for her second born, my brother, before he showed his face to the world. Apparently when the nurse brought him to her, my mother became furious and rejected him on the spot. She had given birth to a girl (Sharon) and the hospital had erroneously switched babies. Her disappointment mixed with whatever drugs she was on no doubt contributed to this debacle. And so it went, my father demanding a meeting with the doctors, and then the blood tests, until it was finally confirmed that yes indeed this poor baby was legitimately her son, my brother. One week later and right before the bris, my Jewish grandmother insisted that David take his middle name as his first, but by then my mother had properly claimed him and put her foot down about that. So David was David and Sharon was filed away.

My mother was also wildly imaginative and heavily invested in her vision of a romantic happy ending that would one day be delivered. To that effect my father was deemed a huge derailment, along with the few boyfriends that followed. Until she met the married one, who lasted 7 years. Michael had convinced her that he was a well-travelled government spy and had pictures of himself in Africa and South America to prove it. He had made her promise to keep his secret, which she did, until she confessed it all to me in a hushed kitchen conversation. There was no one else in the apartment at the time, but you had to be careful. I tried to reason with her, but she believed him and probably everything else he spun, even after he stole all her cash, gold bars, and watches.

My mother was unique. She was frustratingly difficult, at times very funny, and the sky was her home. And on certain days, I swear I see her in its wash of promise.

Thank you to the ones who inspire me daily to be true to myself when I write... Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Steve Earle, Sigur Ros, Kathleen Edwards, Kacey Musgraves, Julie Miller, Rhianna, Future, Bon Iver, Yellawolf, Lights and to songwriters everywhere