• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Bex Hall

  • Blog
  • The Memoir
  • Newsletter
  • About
  • Contact me
Bex Hall > Memoir in Objects > Second chances and the power of kindness

Second chances and the power of kindness

April 4, 2022

How one message helped save my life

Don’t ever give up, kindness rock found at UK

Early October, 2014

I have little time left to live, if you want to call my existence living. Months spent on two waiting lists. Two false alarms. One liver wasn’t viable and I don’t remember the reason for the second rejection.

Frequent visits to the clinic are mandatory to determine rank on the waiting list based on many factors, like lab results from blood work. Every trip sucks life from my unsteady body.

I am ready to stop it all. The endless needle pokes, blood transfusions, tests, and waiting in limbo.

In the restroom I look in the mirror at my jaundiced skin, balding head, and bloodshot eyes and say to myself, “This must be how it ends, this is it,” to the stranger who stares back.

I will never get the call. There will never be a match. My hope is gone.

I splash water on my face and when I open my eyes; I see it. A rock where no rock should be, right there on the sink. It’s painted bright blue with white lettering.

Don’t ever give up.

Even though my brain is foggy, I grasp the magnitude of this magic. The timing is impeccable. Somewhere deep within my unreliable body, a dam explodes and every cell floods with warmth. A tingle of hope goosebumps my flesh.

I stash the newfound treasure in my jacket pocket and walk with a lighter step back to the waiting room.


I do not know who placed this rock in a restroom at the University of Kentucky Transplant Center. But I’ve kept it in honor of a stranger’s kindness and how it nudged me toward the path to keep living. A simple but powerful reminder that good things will happen. And they did. I received a liver transplant a few weeks later on October 22nd.

A few years after my surgery, I read about Megan Murphy, founder of The Kindness Rocks Project™️ and joined in the practice of creating messages on rocks and placing them in the community for others to find. It’s a small way to give back for the kindness I found in one of my darkest hours.

One message at just the right moment can change someone’s entire day, outlook, life.

Yes, it can.


This is the 24th story in the Objects as Waypoints Writing Project series.

The kindness rock I keep on my desk.

To learn more about organ donation or become a donor, visit Donate Life.

Filed Under: Memoir in Objects Tagged With: the 100 day project 2022, the objects

Primary Sidebar

About Bex

 

Bex Hall

Her writing has appeared in various online and print publications, most recently in Kerning, a literary magazine, and in the Stories of Hope Collection in Transplant Living. Her artwork has appeared and sold through the Grayson Gallery. She blogs here about creative life and creates in Studio BE overlooking the Ohio River. Her work in progress is a memoir about the secret life of objects.

Notes

  • The 100 Day Project

    50 short stories in 100 days.

Subscribe to my newsletter

Secondary Sidebar

Notes

  • Creative practice goals:

    Show up every day behind the pen, the brush, or the lens and share my work.

Footer

Recent Posts

  • Gratitude, grief, and getting through
  • I’d like to ask a favor
  • No selvedge on my fabric heart
  • Answers lead to more questions
  • You can’t always get what you want

Inspiration & Craft

Quotes on Creativity

Recommended Books

Art & Writing Supplies

Galleries

Photo Gallery

Connect on Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Medium
  • Pinterest

Copyright © 2023 · Bex Hall

  • Blog
  • The Memoir
  • Newsletter
  • About
  • Contact me