A little pain to heal the soul

Saturday, I got the linework done on the memorial tattoo for my brother. It’s my 14th tattoo, covering up my very first one. And by far my biggest tattoo. It’s a walleye, his nickname, with a stupid hat he wore in the last photo we have of him — the photo on my desk right now. His stupid American flag hat and matching swim trunks, just trying to make people laugh. I had to immortalize it — it’s just quintessential John.

The wording is “A piece of my heart now turned to ash”. I came up with this phrase after a few others, while planning this tattoo. But that is the first one I came up with that made me cry as soon as I thought of it.

As my brother, he is a piece of my heart. And he is now a box of ash. If I think about it matter of factly like this, I can nod and think “that’s correct”.

But if I really think about it, it seems absurd. How could my brother be dead? How could my brother no longer be himself, but now a box of ash? Occasionally, it strikes me again that it’s true. It’s still so surreal…

This is the first tattoo where I’ve cried while getting it. It was painful, to be sure, but I was crying because I was cursing my brother for the pain. “You asshole, this is your fault” I would think, then start to cry. Then I’d be fine again, gritting my teeth through the pain. Then I’d be mad at him again.

And then of course there’s the pain of explaining it to everyone that asks about it. Of course, I knew this would be a thing to deal with. Sharing the story of my brother with anyone that digs for more information. I start with “it’s a memorial for my brother”. I find that a lot of people have lost a lot of people, and I’ve only talked to a few so far from this tattoo. I will connect with strangers over loss and grief, simply by having this tattoo.

And it will be painful. But it will also be healing. It won’t let me keep it bottled up.

I’m excited to get the color and shading done in a couple of weeks!