'Remembering my wife': Local resident creates a 'Wall of Memories' for his wife

The simple gray concrete walls of Palma Bennett's garage are covered with pictures. They span across nearly the entirety of the back wall, and large, bold letters at the top label the arrangement of photos as "The Wall of Memories." His fingers, worn with his age of 90 years old, gently brushed over some of the photos as he shared their backgrounds. He described a picture from when he met his wife, Helen "Dink" Bennett, at Milligan Univeristy, and one from their marriage in 1957; some contained the birth of their son, and most were images of Helen alone, from her childhood to spending her life with Palma. And the purpose of them all? To preserve his wife's memory. Palma shared that around five years ago, Helen was diagnosed with breast cancer. It has since progressed into stage four. "They were going to do surgery, but it was so close to an artery in here that the doctors said, 'We cannot do that because if we just barely hit that artery with a knife, you'd be dead,'" he said. "They did chemotherapy, and the cancer's not growing. She's taking medicine regularly, but her life is miserable." Palma and Helen's initial reaction to the news of the cancer's spread was heartbreak. However, Palma said the circumstance caused many conversations between himself and his wife. They have the chance to look back at the memories they created whilst planning for what life looks like after she dies. "A lot of people die just like that – no time to grieve, no time to talk, hug, laugh and talk about how it might've been if she hadn't had cancer," he said, his voice shaky and tears brimming his eyes. "But we've had a lot of good times." The news of Helen's sickness is what spurred Palma to create the Wall of Memories. He said he originally started putting the collection together in December 2024 to have it ready for Valentine's Day in 2025. As he kept looking through photos, the more he added to the wall. "I've got thousands of pictures – I got married carrying a camera," he said with a chuckle. "[We've got] boxes full back there. So I thought, 'What can we do with those? Nobody's going to see them in these boxes.'" He began pulling out photos of his lifetime with Helen and putting them in frames, arranging them to aesthetically fill the empty spaces on the wall. Since beginning the project, photos have been swapped out for others, with Palma's method being to choose "whatever appeals to him" as memories for the wall. "It's a primary of her and secondary of me all the way down," he said, motioning along the wall. "I've taken a bunch of stuff down and I've put up new stuff that I felt like is more modern and of interest to people." Some of the photos were encased in frames he already had, while others he had found at second-hand stores. The creative frames, though, were made by Palma himself, using old mint containers or the tops of wet wipes packages to give a playful "Look Inside!" message and create an interactive photo viewing. Palma said while the wall is not publicly available to view because of its location in his home, he has shared the wall with close friends and family members, inviting them to see Helen's life captured in every photograph displayed. He added while he was working on the majority of the wall, he kept it secret from Helen to surprise her. Once she saw it, though, Palma said she was "awestricken." "She loves it now that she's able to see it," he said. "'Oh my,' she says." For the Wall of Memories' future, Palma said eventually, his work will have to be taken down, especially since the residence he lives in is one he is renting. As a retired minister, he said his faith has played a role in comfort while he works in keeping the memory of his wife alive. "I've been real fragile, but in the meantime it's forced me to think about life and what it's all about, and how we're only here for a while and then we're gone," Palma said. "I thank God for the times we've had together. I'm not critical. I'm gonna die some day…some people don't have the luxury, though, of spending time to talk about it." Palma said making the assortment of photos became more important to preserve Helen's memories once her health took a rapid decline, creating the wall to share and preserve her life. "[Its purpose] is remembering my wife," he said. "Her background, our marriage, her life where we lived different places, her history."