Minister Marion Hall marks 57 with quiet gratitude and youthful vigour

While plenty of people her age reach for creams and treatments in hopes of staying young-looking, Minister Marion Hall says she wastes little thought on a beauty routine. The veteran entertainer credits the Lord who has carried her through, along with inherited traits from her mother and father, for why she still grows older gracefully without fussing over appearances.

Now marking 57 years and a long career in music, she told The Gleaner that a clean lifestyle rooted in God is the only regimen she relies on to remain vibrant in her faith. “I’m 57 feeling like I’m 30, and I’m so grateful because I don’t have any arthritis, no knee or back problems, and no sickness. It is such a blessing because a lot of times I see people who are younger than I am and they have serious challenges with their health. They have issues with walking and end up needing all kinds of surgeries, etc, and so I’m grateful to be here, illness-free,” Minister Hall said.

Her birthday fell on Sunday, and she stressed it was not for revelry but for stillness and thanks for a life she has lived well. “I was just sitting with a friend and recalling how good my life has been. I’m not a person who seeks the limelight or flamboyance. I wanted my actual birthday to be a quiet day with the Lord whom I celebrate because it is the day that the Lord hath made, and so I am rejoicing because the Lord has kept me going,” the music minister said.

Reflecting further, the singer once known as Lady Saw said she believes she could have lost her life on several occasions. She described a crash from her early years. “[I] was maybe around 22. The injuries caused me to be unconscious until I woke up in the hospital and realised where I was. This was when I was a young artiste in Jamaica. We had driven from Kingston to Westmoreland, working with a sound system, and we had an accident. I remember being pulled from the wreck, and there was a lot of glass, and as they’re pulling me, I could hear voices around me but couldn’t say who was talking, but God wasn’t done with me yet,” said the minister, who was baptised 10 years ago.

Looking as she does at 57, she insisted, owes more to inheritance than to any carefully planned eating habits. “Can I tell you I don’t do anything special or use anything special. People ask me all the time, ‘What do you use on your face?’ I say nothing. I just wash my face regular. Soap and water. People complement me on my skin, and I tell them that it’s just the glow and glory of God. It’s the light of the Lord that is on me and within me.”

She also makes clear that skipping a formal beauty schedule goes with skipping a fixed gym timetable and any rigid food plan. “I never watch my diet. If I join the gym, I only go two days and nuh bada go back so a plenty money me waste ‘cause a nuh lickle gym me join over the years. But I guess I have good genes from my mom and dad as they always looked young and fresh, even as they aged ... apple nuh fall far from the tree,” Hall explained.

She eats freely and keeps meals straightforward. “I eat rice, and me love bread. Me, basically, nyam everything ... and I’m getting a belly right yah now, but I will walk it off by walking round the neighbourhood when I’m ready.”