Bex Hall

Bex Hall > Memoir in Objects

Memoir in Objects

The hourglass

The hourglass from Mom’s garage.

Mom asks me to take a few days and clean out the mountains of boxes and debris packed high in her three-car garage. She offers, “If you do it now, before I die, it’ll be easier—you won’t be sad.”

She has a point there, although I suspect she simply wants to get her car in there.

During the project, I uncover 27 wristwatches, 6 metal garden sundials, 5 clock radios, and 2 chintzy clocks. None of them found together. As if she bought one, put it away, and it became buried. She couldn’t find it, so she bought another one. Over and over.

In one box I find a fragile hourglass. It’s filled with shimmery, aqua colored sand. No framework protects its delicate structure. I flip it over and watch the sand form a crumbly pyramid in the bottom globe.

I place it in the tub of things I want to keep and think about the concept of time.

If I live to be a hundred, I’m already a little past midlife, my mom, further along. I ask myself how I want to spend the rest of our time together.

If I’m judgmental and critical, it won’t change a thing. I could share with her the list of grievances I’ve accumulated and nurtured over the years. All the missteps and slights I’ve felt. All the times she was less of a mother than I expected her to be.

Then I think of my daughters and all the times I’ve misspoke, made missteps, and messed up. All the times I was less of a mother than what they expected. Ouch.

I wonder how much head space I could free up if I took my negative scorecard and do with it what we are going to do with most of this stuff: donate it.

I consider the possibility my mom is simply human and I see her in a new light. With the piles of stuff gone, I can actually see her, period.

The hourglass sits by my desk and when I flip it over, it reminds me we don’t have forever. I hear the sand whisper forgiveness, and I pick up the phone and call Mom.

This is the 39th story in the Objects as Waypoints Writing Project series.

The piece of scrap plywood

From trash to treasure

Scrap artwork on the back porch.

It was an unwanted object, this 3’ x 6’ piece of unfinished plywood, a raw scrap destined to languish in the garage’s corner among the other project leftovers. But I saw a blank canvas.

It had been over a year since transplant surgery and improved health fueled newfound enthusiasm for creating. Nothing seemed off limits. Old furniture, terra cotta pots, the mailbox. Assorted types of paint and brushes accumulated and occupied spaces not meant for such things.

The project begins.

I set up a makeshift work area in the backyard and primed its surface. I started with a sunflower but it wasn’t what I wanted to paint. So why was I? Instead of abandoning the project, I gave myself a do-over.

Do over.

As I painted and blended a summer sky between sunset and night, I heard my grandmother’s voice, I love who I am when I make something beautiful.

That my husband liked the finished piece of scrap artwork enough to hang it on our back porch gave the dormant artist within a nudge to keep going.

This is the 38th story in the Objects as Waypoints Writing Project series.

The letter I wrote to a stranger

Photo by John Jennings via Unsplash

The day after my liver transplant, as the fog of anesthesia cleared, a cloud of deep sorrow settled in its place.

As days turned to weeks, I regained physical stability, but my emotions remained shaky. I wrestled with guilt and gratitude. Someone, somewhere had lost a loved one and because of this I got to live. I had survivor’s guilt.

During a counseling session, the therapist shared an interesting perspective.

She said, “This individual, either choosing beforehand to be a donor, or through the kindness of their family, gave a gift freely and without conditions. You, as the recipient of this gift of life and love, have only one response that could ever be enough. Live your life to the fullest, and love unconditionally, as someone did for you. That’s the only way you could ever respond properly to that gift.”

Her advice helped with my struggle, and I looked for ways to carry out just that.

A little over a year after my transplant, I felt like I finally had something more than the words “thank you” to convey, so I wrote and mailed the donor’s family a letter with my condolences and gratitude. And I closed with:

In honor of your loved one, my husband and I planted a memorial garden. It contains 400 spring bulbs and thousands of summer wildflower seeds in a 40’ x 4’ strip in our backyard. It should grow into a colorful tribute to your person who so selflessly gave me a second chance to live. — With all my love forever, Bex

The garden is and remains, a continuous cycle of life and love.

One morning in the gratitude garden.
Spring in the gratitude garden.

This is the 37th story in the Objects as Waypoints Writing Project series.

Photo of pen and note by John Jennings on Unsplash

The thing that’s not really an object

But I see it every day

Photo: Rodrigo Capuski via Getty Images
Mercedes logo shaped scar from liver transplant surgery.

October 22, 2014

As I was being wheeled into surgery for a liver transplant, the surgeon asked me what kind of scar I wanted. Confused, I asked him to clarify. He said he can make the incision in one of two ways. It was my choice. I could either have a Mercedes or a Lexus logo on my abdomen. I could choose my scar.

That’s positive thinking right there. That’s saying this wound will heal. And it did. It took some time. In fact, for many weeks, a small portion refused to mend. It became red and inflamed. I had to keep it clean and care for it to avoid infection. Turned out a stitch hadn’t dissolved properly and, like a burr under a saddle, it rankled and caused pain. Wouldn’t mend.

After the errant stitch disappeared, the wound fully healed. There’s no physical pain now, just a semblance of a Mercedes logo—a three-pointed star I see when I look in the mirror.

This is the 36th story in the Objects as Waypoints Writing Project series.

Photo: Rodrigo Capuski via Getty Images

The object I no longer have

but old photos prove it existed

A favorite piece of art that has since disappeared.

At 17 I was restless. The power struggles between me and my grandparents resulted in frequent screaming matches over what felt like unfair punishments and rules. I spent an inordinate amount of time confined to my room.

Fortunately, there was a large framed painting that hung on the wall. I spent hundreds of hours staring at it from my bed, willing myself to fly through its open window and sail out over the salty marsh into the clear blue yonder. The sunhat wrapped with a billowy scarf and the fresh picked flower resting on the sill spoke of a carefree existence I ached for.

If you leave here tonight, you will never be welcome here again are the last words I heard as I stormed out the front door with a handful of belongings. That was the night of my 18th birthday. Within the year, they forgave me, but instead of moving back home, I retrieved the rest of my things, including the oversized artwork I had to wrangle into the back of my Datsun B210.

I spent the next 16 years too often carelessly unkind and also often despairing. I remained restless and in every house, every relationship, the picture hung around. It whispered promises of escape. I tried for years to conform, to be the good mother, the good wife, the person others felt I should be. I wouldn’t admit I might need help. My remedy was to run, and that piece of art represented the freedom I desperately sought.

It was 1996, another move, another run. I don’t remember taking the picture down from the wall or packing it. That was the same year I finally said yes to counseling and began surrendering my attachment to running away. I began healing.

There are no photos I can find of the artwork and I have no memory of it in any house I lived post-1996. It disappeared around the same time my need to fly through its open window into the clear blue yonder faded away.

This is the 35th story in the Objects as Waypoints Writing Project series.