We asked readers to send us photos of their tattoos and tell us the stories behind them. Those stories told of joy, accomplishment, friendship, love, remembrance and sadness. Today, we print a selection of them. If you want to tell the story of your tattoo, send it with a high-resolution photo to features@timescolonist.com.
Marigolds mean more to me than any other flower, simply because my daughter’s middle name is Marigold. Florence Marigold was a fighter, a beautiful little girl with a halo of blonde curls and the softest, doe-brown eyes. She died at Canuck Place at the start of marigold season in May. As she lay in her bed, we asked if marigolds could be brought into her room.
Flats of Hero Marigolds were set up by the windows. She was losing her battle with spinal muscular atrophy type 1, at the tender age of three. As we said goodbye, the sharp, musky scent of marigolds in bloom filled the cool room.
I still can’t believe I had to let my daughter go, had to watch her leave in the back of a funeral van. But, in the spring and summer, I have marigolds to pluck and crush and smell. The heady scent brings me right back to that moment in time, two years ago.
I got my tattoo a few months after she passed. It was the perfect thing for my aching mama heart. Each bloom appeared beneath the needle and I felt that the connection I have to Florence, the connection that would never die, would always be alive on my arm — a constant reminder of her life and legacy. When marigolds die off in the fall, I always have the blooms available on the tender, soft spot where wrist meets palm.
You can see more of her story and marigolds under the hashtag #FlorenceMarigoldinBloom, where hundreds of people have planted this sacred flower in her honour.
Michaela Evanow
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For my 50th birthday — my big 5-0 (I’m now 62) — my husband had to organize five things that started (or ended) with an “O.” He was also required to spread the things throughout the year. One of them was taking me to get a tattoo. I’d wanted one for a while and figured my 50th birthday was as good a time as any to go under the needle.
I knew that some sort of thistle (the national weed of Scotland, as my husband puts it) was my ultimate goal. My father is from Elgin, Scotland, and came to Canada with the RAF, on a troop ship, during the war. He learned to fly on the Prairies with the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan and was asked to stay and teach other Commonwealth pilots, once he’d earned his wings. He fell in love with Canada and emigrated in 1949.
My tattoo was to be in his honour. Truth be told, even at the age of 50, I thought my dad would not be best pleased with his daughter getting a tattoo. However, if it was a tattoo of a thistle — his native flower — how could he object? Right?
I searched the internet and came up with a darling little thistle (the size of a quarter). When I showed it to my artist, he laughed and said it would turn into a big black/blue blob and needed to be upsized.
He came back from the next room with a new version on a piece of transfer paper. To my mind, it was huge! Bowing to his counsel and expertise, I agreed. “Is your husband OK with this?” he asked. “Of course,” I replied. “He’s sitting in the waiting room.”
I’ve had a child, I thought. How bad can the discomfort be? Forty-three gruelling, almost unbearable, minutes later, here is the result. And I love it, by the way.
Sheena Pennie
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When I saw this article, I knew I simply had to share my story. Marilyn, my wife of 48 years, passed away about three years ago. I was in a kind of depression for a long time, until I was persuaded by some friends to seek help with the Nanaimo Community Hospice Society. I did so, with fear and trepidation, and the experience was a complete rescue for me.
I attended individual counselling with a trained professional, and went to group meetings with others on the same path. After many meetings, my counsellor suggested that I might have the personality to be a hospice volunteer.
In January 2016, I was accepted into the training program. This was an intensive eight weeks of Mondays, learning to be a good listener, and learning the difference between sympathy and empathy. There is certainly more to it than that, as you can well imagine, but it was a very emotionally draining, yet uplifting experience. Sorry, I have tears in my eyes just writing this.
That spring, I started volunteering at the palliative care unit at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital. I found that, although sometimes very sombre, these sessions working with families and patients were helping me on my own road out of grief and loss.
Then, at the point of being with the hospice for six months, I asked Jeanne, one of our supervisors, how I should celebrate my first half-year. I was too impatient to wait for a full year. She simply said: “Get a tattoo,” and showed me hers, a little heart held by two loving hands.
Was she ever surprised when I came to her office a week or so later and showed her what I had done. I had gotten the hospice logo, and the motto “Caring, Commitment, Compassion” on the inside of my left arm. I swear, she screamed out loud and did the peepee dance right there in her office.
Then, in the spring of this year, I got to thinking that it’s really hard to stop at only one tattoo, so I went to Sandra’s Ink in Nanaimo to get a memorial to my sweet Marilyn on the other arm. We met in Alberta, in 1966, so I thought it appropriate to get an Alberta wild rose tattoo.
Michael Whipps