Bex Hall

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Bexhall

A year has passed and it’s been a blur

A year ago, today was the last day my mother was conscious enough to recognize us for a few moments. The next morning on July 20th, 2022 at 8:44, I watched the vein in her neck cease its throbbing and called the nurse. 

There was nothing and everything. I didn’t know what to expect and yet I think I wanted something to feel different. Some knowing, some reassurance. What? Some kind of presence, her soul to make itself known that she was at peace and going home.

But there was only a silence. Two nurses, one staring at the watch on her wrist, the other with her gloved fingers on Mom’s neck, searching for proof of death. 

Then faces with mouths moving, saying things that made no sense. Blur. Did I even cry? We waited for the funeral home to come and take her away. I shut the door of my car and drove home in the opposite direction.

Mom used to play her guitar and sing folk music like Leaving on a Jet Plane, 500 Miles, and other sort of sad songs. Sometimes she would cry while playing and as a child, I would cry with her even though I didn’t know the reason. She had a beautiful voice and I could not hold a note. There was one song she played, and I knew it was just for me. It was our song.

One of the very last things Mom said through her garbled speech and then halfway wrote on the paper with the pen I helped her hold was, “You are my sunshine.” You’ll never know how much I love you.

I would give anything to hear her sing it again.

Please don’t take my sunshine away.

Hug the ones you love. xoxo

At The Rock, Coal River, St. Albans, WV, Lower Falls, we said goodbye to Mom.

Notes found in Jar of Wishes reveals universal desires

Six months ago, I opened an antique booth and set up a shelf with a sign that asks, “What do you collect?” and suggested the customer write a note and leave it in the labeled “Jar of Wishes.” My intention was to learn what material things people *wished* to collect. 

The people responded.

There were notes with specific brands like Pyrex, Rainbow glass, and Pillsbury Dough Boy. Then general requests for antique keys, coffee mugs, snow globes, coins, knives, and watches.

I have made it a point to find all these objects while I’m estate and yard “saling” for inventory each week.

One lady shared her love for Humpty Dumpty paraphernalia, but what she was really seeking was solace in the nostalgia of a lost connection, finding comfort in the memories of a loved one who read her those childhood tales.

Another woman is searching for St. Joe yearbooks, 1950-1953 for her grandfather now in a care home and struggling. I have yet to find those. But the more I consider it, I don’t think she’s simply after a set of books; she is hoping to reignite her grandfather’s fading memories, giving him a glimpse of his cherished high school days.

Then there are the notes in the “Jar of Wishes” written by kind souls who expressed themselves literally:

“I wish to graduate college.”

“I wish for my crush to ask me out.”

“I wish to get a good paying job so my boyfriend and I can move in together soon.”

“For Katelyn and I [to] grow old together, [get] married, with some kids and live in places across the world.”

“I wish…I had more time with my daughter.”

The notes in the jar reveal the universal desires we all share — the longing for personal growth, love, and meaningful connections. They remind me that while material possessions can bring temporary joy; it is the intangible experiences and relationships that truly enrich our lives.

Blooming can take time

In nature and in ourselves

The longest I’ve ever lived in the same house is this one. My childhood homes were many between my mother and my grandparents. I lived in between from infancy to 18, in between the times when my mom was able to care for me and the times my grandparents would provide. I never stayed in the same place for any length of time.

In the early 70s my granddad bought a house in one town and had it transported to ours and placed on top of a first-story foundation they built made of blocks. They had cut the home site out of the side of a hill with the majority of trees cleared, except for a select few fully mature tulip poplars.

Granddad hated what he called “dirty” trees, but Grandmother and I delighted in the yellow and orange tulip-shaped clusters of color that dotted the green-filled branches. The petals would eventually expire and litter the ground in the spring. Then, in autumn, the brown, ski-shaped samaras soiled what remained of the green lawn. Granddad saw the natural cycle of these trees as a nuisance, but I saw the process through the lens of wonder.

While I was enjoying the tulip poplar trees of my youth in St. Albans, WV, nearly 200 miles away, one had sprouted in the backyard of a family in Georgetown, KY. The mother of the family placed rocks around the sapling to protect it. Her son witnessed the tree grow tall, and when he returned to visit after moving from home, they would notice the yellow and orange tulip shaped clusters of color as they sat in its shade.

The first year my husband and I lived here, he went to his mother’s house for a visit and dug up two sapling sprouts from her favorite tree, and then planted them in our backyard. We watched them grow tall and full and wondered for a few years why there were no blooms until we learned it can take up to 15 years before a tulip poplar will produce flowers.

Then yesterday morning, from my back porch, I watched the sun’s beams poke through the woods and land on one of the tulip poplar trees, and there they were—yellow and orange-shaped clusters of color glowing in the expanse of green-filled branches. Fifteen years after being planted. Fifteen years here. The longest I’ve ever lived in the same place.

I feel a kinship with these trees. Maybe I needed to be in one spot for 15 years before I could bloom, too.

It’s time to change focus

But I’m not giving up on The 100 Day Project

I painted some tiny watercolor flowers and added some ink, but my heart is not in my art right now.

In five days, I will attend a weeklong writer’s retreat in Ashland City, TN at Blue Spring Creek Retreats and when there’s a project looming, I struggle with multi-tasking.

The goal for the getaway is to revise and polish the memoir draft I wrote last year. It’s been through the hands of a professional editor already, but I haven’t touched it since. I let life, and death, get in the way.

With this fantastic opportunity, I turn my focus to writing for the foreseeable future. 

I never knew my 100 day project would take this turn, and while I welcome the change, I also recognize the need to alter the original goal of sharing work every day. Unless it’s writing about writing. Which may help my process. Who knows?

I will post photos and progress notes over the next few weeks or maybe even for the rest of the 100 day project. But for now, I set my paintbrushes aside.

And during this I will do my best to remember Julia Cameron’s words: “As I create and listen, I will be led.”

Until next time, xoxo