~a column by Colleen O’Brien
A friend lost his wife of 57 years a few of months before Valentine’s Day. They had met in college, married, had kids and were one of those couples who loved each other and acted like it. They liked to be together. They were fun to be around. They were positive about life, looking on the bright side of the good times and the trying.
Even when she got cancer.
She went through the treatment, beat the beast and was living the thankful life, five years clear of chemo blasts and lost hair.
But it struck again, and this time, virulently. She went quickly, the husband barely able to comprehend it. But still in the early stages of grief, he thought of a way to honor his beloved girl in a unique and permanent way.
He had his chest tattooed with her “saying” to him: “I love you tons and tons and tons.” If she was mad at him, she’d use only one “ton.” Which meant, of course, that even in anger, she could not resist letting him know that she loved him anyway.
The intimacy of this tattoo is obvious – words of love in her own script, on his very skin, with him no matter when or where . . . along with a few of her ashes mixed in the ink by a tattoo artist of obvious talent and heart.
