This one’s about the secret life of names, how they shape us, and how they land.

Part I was the story of how bees became our symbol of shared labor, mutual care, and volunteer culture. Part II is the more personal side.

The bees didn’t just show up in our mission.
They showed up in old traditions, strange timing, and tiny messengers with wings.

‘Lily Melissa Owens, your jar is open.’

The quote is a whisper of a moment in the book The Secret Life of Bees, and unexplained beyond the metaphor of an open door and the chance to walk through it. But I knew what else it meant.

Bees and honey run through the history of people I love.

When my son was just starting to talk, he couldn’t pronounce his sister’s name, Kayla, so he called her what he heard the grownups call her: Honey.

He’d run to her at full speed after she got out of school, weaving through all the other kids, squealing with joy, “Honey!” The other moms were delighted.

There was a little girl in the neighborhood named Michaela. 

He called her Ma-Honey.

And then there’s Van Morrison. You see this one coming, right? My daughter and I love Tupelo Honey, which is layered into our story. ‘Just like honey, baby, from the bee.’

And my mom? My mom’s initials are B.B. Her husband, who adored her, simply called her “B.”

When I sold my home in 2012 to start a new life, my daughter gave me a signed copy of The Secret Life of Bees for Christmas. It was a time when I needed to believe that the jar was opening for me, too. Six months later came the catalyst for everything that would eventually become Adopt an Inmate. 

It’s funny how life keeps echoing itself. Sometimes we’re not choosing the symbols, we’re just listening. It can even be a color, a taste, a scent. Or a name.

I met my oldest and dearest friend on the first day of sixth grade in the fall of 1975. She has a gift that has always fascinated me. She feels names.

We live in different states now, but I know the full names of her friends because that’s how she refers to them. It’s an act of respect. She’s the only one who knows the full parade of names I’ve worn over the years. In order. Legal, chosen, abandoned. The outward signs of all my attempts to choose who I was, or to borrow who I thought I was supposed to be.

Her name stayed the same while I spun and flitted around. She never judged. Just watched me circle, waiting for me to land.

Once, I saw her guess a stranger’s name.

She was visiting me, and I took her to the charming downtown in my little city. We had just left a bookstore and crossed the street so I could take her to a groovy local spot. A cigar bar with jazz music, pool tables, and spirits. At the counter we ordered ruby port, and (I swear I am not making this up) Havana Honey cigars.

She mentioned to the owner that she’d just picked up a poetry book by Bukowski. He shrugged and said he wasn’t much for poetry.

Well that didn’t sit well with her. She always knew who she was, a writer, musician, an actor. Art, in all its forms, is sacred to her. She couldn’t let it stand that someone would intentionally shut out that kind of beauty from their life.

“If I can guess your name,” she said, “you’ll read one poem from this book.”

And because she always makes room for others, she invited me in:
“You go first,” she said. “Take a guess.”

I don’t remember what I said.
It wasn’t his name.

Then it was her turn. She went quiet. Studied him.
His energy. His posture. His face as he looked back at her.

After maybe fifteen seconds, she said:

“David.”

She said it with such confidence, I knew she was right. He turned to his staff and demanded to know who told her.

But no one had.
It wasn’t some parlor trick. It was reverence.

Years after that, we met in New York, and visited the 9/11 memorial. The one with all the names. She had to sit down. “It’s the names,” she said through tears, feeling the weight of them.

If you’re wondering what her name is, it’s Sarah.

Her name means princess, but she’s not the tiara-wearing type.
She’s royalty of a different kind.

The kind that can command the stage, summon a name, and still remember your dog’s birthday.

One of my former last names began with a B, which is why, years ago, I started using “Bee” as my last name online. It was a way to keep myself both hidden and seen.

Just a few months ago, after some significant personal turmoil, I stopped circling, and landed, legally changing my name for the last time. To what it always real-ly was. Melissa Bee.

One last breadcrumb:
It’s never explained.
Not in the book. Not in the movie.
But I’ll tell you something Sue Monk Kidd never does:

Lily’s middle name, Melissa, means “honeybee.”

So yes, this little “bee thing” is personal. 

Messages from the universe are a lot like dreams.
They don’t need to make sense to anyone but you.
Someone else may come away with something completely different.
That’s the beauty of it.

So now I’m curious …
Has a book, a name, or a line ever cracked something open for you?
Have you ever stumbled across a message that felt… meant?

🗣️ Tell me your story. What was your jar is open moment?

🔗 Missed Part I? Read Bee Speak: The History of Communal Labor
🐝 Get Involved – Help behind the scenes
✍️ Take the Quiz – How much do you know about U.S. prisons?
❤ Give – Fuel the mission