A new acquaintance noticed the tattoo on at my front left shoulder. “Is that a rhino with a mustache?” he asked. I explained that the rhino was my deceased son’s mascot, and that my son had a luxuriant handlebar mustache of which he was very proud, and I wanted a tat to memorialize him.
“I told my tattoo artist that and he just kind of ran with the concept…..”
It was only later that it struck me as funny that I casually referenced “my tattoo artist.”
I got my first tattoo at age 61 several years ago after I started running. Having entered some races and actually winning age group awards, I felt I needed to commemorate them somehow, and so settled on a big “running” turtle….cause I’m big, and I’m old, and I’m slow….but I still run!
Steve (my son), who was fully “sleeved”, and had numerous tats on his chest, back and legs, and most of whose friends were similarly inked, commented after seeing it “Hey Ma, now you’re one of us!”
I remember at the time taking an absurd amount of pleasure at that remark, and it’s one of those quirky memories of things he said or did that suddenly jump into my head and take my breath away at remembering how fabulous he was….and how much I miss him.
Comments & Feedback