Ben's Bells

Small reminder of kindness makes its way to the Valley

by Laurie Roberts, columnist - Mar. 28, 2012 12:00 AM
The Republic | azcentral.com

When you get up Thursday, look around. Oh, you should notice all the usual things we take for granted around here, things like the cut of the mountains against the sky or the sweet scent of spring. But look a little closer.

Tomorrow, Ben's Bells are coming to the Valley. One thousand bells will be dangling in the trees and tied onto fences. They'll be in parks and along streets and hiking trails, there to spread a simple yet profound message.

I first came upon the bells outside the Safeway north of Tucson, a few days after the shooting that left six people dead and 13 wounded, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. There, at the scene of so much sorrow, was one city's unmistakable reply: bells. Dozens upon dozens of brightly colored bells hanging from trees and draped across bushes and hooked onto shopping cart racks.

Ben's Bells, they are called, for a 2-year-old Tucson boy who died suddenly in his mother's arms on Good Friday 2002. The darkness and the pain that follow such a thing, well, there just aren't words for what a parent goes through.

The healing, Ben's mother would tell you, began with kindness.

"We were walking around looking like ordinary people on the outside when we were just dying on the inside," Jeannette Maré told me, when I tracked her down to ask about the bells.

"Anytime anybody would do an act of kindness for us -- the smallest little show of connection like eye contact or a smile or being let into traffic or anything -- was just kind of miraculously healing. I literally felt like I needed to die, and then somebody would do an act like that and I knew in that moment, at least in that moment, that I could survive."

Maré began making the wind chimes in her garage after Ben's death, fashioning the clay beads and ceramic ornaments and lashing them to brass bells. Ben's parents and their friends hung 400 bells around Tucson on the first anniversary of his death, attaching a tag to each one. "You have found a Ben's Bell," it says. "Take it home, hang it and remember to spread kindness."

These days, the bells are made in an open studio in Tucson and hung twice a year. Last March,The Arizona Republic and 12 News teamed with Maré to hang 250 bells in the Valley.

It's a funny thing about these bells, I learned, as the stories streamed in from those who found them. They are so much more than bits of clay and brass.

They were a wake-up call and a salve and for some, like Suzanne Berndt Williams, they were a lifeline.

Williams found her bell hanging in the paloverde just outside the window of her son's room. Kieren was a "fiercely kind" boy who had taken his life a few months earlier and to find the bell there, in the tree outside his room, was a sign, she knew.

"I truly felt like it was him, just saying 'It's OK,'" Williams said.

After finding her bell, Williams got in touch with Maré and with others who wanted to establish a branch of Ben's Bells in Phoenix. Since then, they've opened a workshop of sorts in Donna Wiley's garage and gone into schools to talk about what kindness can do.

And Thursday -- on the 10th anniversary of Ben Maré Packard's death -- Maré, Ben's father, Dean Packard, Williams and several dozen others will fan out across the Valley, hanging 1,000 bells in honor of Ben, in the hope the simple message of the bells will take root and grow.

"I really do feel that the people who need the bells, the bells will find them," Williams said.

I hope she's right, because there is power in these little bells. I felt it there in the parking lot that was the scene of so much sadness and I've heard it in the stories of the people who have found them.

It is, Maré says, all about "intentional kindness" and making small connections that can build a community.

A musical reminder about a way of living that changes the feel of a place, or a person.

"I know that they will touch people the way they're supposed to do," Maré said. "I know it's making a difference down here and I know they can do the same in Phoenix."