vanessakee.com

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From birth, I lived on our family farm in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. Watching soldiers walk the streets while learning about the latest bomb explosion was our daily reality. Desensitised to the country's strife, I  was a busy child on the farm and happily chatted with everyone who appeared through our courtyard gates.

 

Without a tap of fear, I could stand on a stage and recite poetry at my school, at a regional contest, or deliver a theatrical performance when feeling the need for drama.

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Then my life changed in every sense when I was six. My family and I immigrated to Ontario, Canada. In the next 12 years, I lived in 12 houses. From the moment I stepped into the first new school until I left my last high school, I never spoke aloud in class besides asking to use the washroom. Yet away from school, I was a foghorn who bossed my four younger siblings about and led us on wild adventures at the various farms we occupied. 

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​Regardless of where we lived, books brought a calming escape from the latest changes, and each page fed my need to understand those who piled in and out of our lives. Without an ounce of grammar wit or sense of craft, I crudely wrote to hold onto the pieces of our transient life. All the while, my parents steered us through the world, fighting hard to make our lives as stable as possible. Mother and Father, the heart of every social circle, were natural champions and the most colourful storytellers to grace the crowds which always circled them.  

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​After racing out through the exit doors of my third high school a final time, I swiftly flew back to Northern Ireland. Hardly more than a child, I got married and quickly learned that being a rural Irish wife wasn't in my makeup. Fortunately, my former husband remains my friend.

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Instead of marital domesticity, I chose a road that was precarious and sometimes lonely. Often fearing there weren’t enough pennies to keep my tiny daughter and me afloat, I worked around the clock in menial jobs without a drop of formal education. While living from hand to mouth, I learned the hardest, greatest truths.

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Then, a baby brother arrived from Canada to visit us in Ireland. He stayed. Hardly more than a boy, he’d look after his niece while I left a few evenings a week, first to perform in a theatre group and later attend night college in Derry. Without him, I don’t know how I would have engaged in the enriching opportunities that changed my life and my child’s. ​

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The night courses paid off. This taxi-driving young mother was accepted into the Queen’s University of Belfast. Studying inside those hallowed classrooms remains one of my life’s most extraordinary times.​

 

Now old enough to fly home to her father every year, my daughter and I returned to my family in Canada. I began working at a women’s shelter and still hang my coat there on weekends. I am raising a second daughter and also work as a brain-injury rehab facilitator. 

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I began writing Take This Body Home nineteen years ago, along with a collection of short stories. I was long-listed for Gloria Vanderbilt’s short fiction prize. Maybe dreaming of writing for an audience wasn't crazy. 

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​I live with my rascal child in a small Ontario town. My grownup daughter lives nearby with her wee family. Now, I pray my first book resonates with folks in the way stories touched me when I needed them most. 

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Vanessa