My parents always told me I would regret getting tattoos. Over the past 10 years I’ve collected 5 and am currently in the process of choosing yet another. My husband, on the other hand, doesn’t have a drop of ink on him. He claims he doesn’t love anything enough to have it on him 24 hours a day for the rest of his life. I can respect that. My opinion has always been that a tattoo tells a story. Sometimes it tells a story we would never be given the chance to otherwise hear.
Tattoo #1: When I was 18 years old my best friend and I, on a complete whim, decided to skip our high-school Calculus class and get matching flower tattoos on our feet. The tattoo is not necessarily all that pretty since I actually HATE my feet, but I love what that tiny little flower represents. It represents not only a friendship which has remained true to this very day but it also encompasses the impulsiveness and slight insanity that is high-school!
Tattoo #2: As a child, whenever I couldn’t sleep my mother would remind me to keep a rosary under my pillow. When the dark room seemed unbearable and my destruction imminent, I would cling to the crucifix on that rosary like a life line. It only seemed fitting that I would tattoo a cross onto my lower back to remain with me at all times. My brother was even so kind as to design it for me from a silver cross gifted to me by my parents.
Tattoo #3: The defining moment, perhaps we should say hardship, in my life was the death of my father. The despair I felt watching cancer take his life over the course of many years transformed me into an entirely different person. As he drew his last breath I have never been surer of the God I believed in. The departure of his soul from this world was remarkably obvious. One moment he was him… and the next he was gone and his body looked nothing like my father. On his gravestone we inscribed “in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti” and on myself and my brother, we tattooed the words “ In nomine Patris” latin for “ In the name of the Father” . I placed mine on my upper back- the most visible of my tattoos and the only one I’m ever questioned about. It gives me the opportunity not only to remember him but to remember why I’ve changed for the better.
Tattoo #4: My mother, who ALWAYS told me I would regret my tattoos, decided to tattoo my father’s name on her ankle along with a Celtic trinity knot. As a show of solidarity and a sign of the unbreakable bond we share, I too chose to tattoo the celtic knot, placing it just above my hip bone.
Tattoo #5: My fifth and final ( for now!) tattoo is in fact just an addition to my 3rd tattoo. Still reeling from the loss of my father, I began to search for ways to display how much his life and his death was ruling over my own existence. I found compass necklaces online, where people could inscribe significant dates – most often a wedding date- or the initials of a loved one. The idea of inscribing the date of my dad’s death or even his initials seems a bit morbid. I decided to instead tattoo a compass directly below “ In nomine Patris” symbolizing not only the impact he had on the direction of my life but my belief that no matter what direction I choose to take from here on out, in the end I’ll be reunited with my father.
Tattoos may not be for everyone. People may look at mine and think I’ve made terrible mistakes or that I’m sure to regret them some day. In my heart I feel that won’t ever happen. They all represent the things I love most in life… my friends, my faith and my family…. How could I ever regret such things?
The Zuf Truth 