tatt 1 – the “mom” bit

today used to almost be emotionally crippling for me…

…when i was growing up Mom was really the only family i really felt i had. yeah, there as my sister but we were never super close, pops was never really around, the grandmothers were there and loved me, but nobody replaced mom.

then she got cancer. badly. we all know how that’s gonna end.

and several years ago today it did.

with seventeen years separation it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be. i don’t feel inclined to sequester myself in my house wearing all black – if anything i find end up having to force myself to remember today IS the actual anniversary. i’m not happy it happened, but i AM happy i’m at that place about it.

certain events make me miss her more and yesterday hanging with the ufc and her kid was one of ’em, ’cause i know Mom would have made an awesome grandma and would really enjoy this kid even if he wasn’t blood related to her. the moments where i realize what she missed by dying in her fifties are when i miss her most. but enough of the sad shit…

…every now and again i see other maternal types pull shit that i think is kinda cool, and i wonder “if she was younger, would liz have done that?”. i only throw in the “…younger” clause ’cause my family did wait a bit to have kids, so the “generational gaps” were pretty significant.

there was the lady who brought in her daughter to get her first tattoo the day BEFORE she turned eighteen, thinking that since she was there to give parental consent that was okay. since september of 1999 that hasn’t been the case in texas. so she turned to her daughter and said, “well, sweetie, we will be back tomorrow to get you taken care of ON your birthday – but in the mean time…” and proceeded to tell me what SHE wanted and then got tattooed while her daughter watched.

hell, at least she brought her back the next day…

and then there was the kid that came in for his “first” tattoo a couple months after he turned eighteen…i put “first” in quotes because his dad made him a simple, but straight forward, promise – “if you wait till your legal and don’t got get some shitty tattoo illegally i’ll pay for your first one.”

simple enough, you would think…but not so much. six months prior to his birthday his friend became of age and spent his birthday money on a “tattoo kit” from china by way of ebay and he got a small anarchy symbol on his ass cheek, which his mom then saw when she cut in the bathroom to get something when he had just gotten out of the shower.

busted.

this was why he was in two months AFTER his “special day” – dad was true to his word so he saved up two bills to pay for it himself…but what he WANTED cost three.

“well, since you have two, i guess we could pay the other hundred so you get what you really want…”, mom said.

“bullshit”, dad retorted, “he didn’t wait – i ain’t paying for shit…but i’ll use that hundred bucks to get YOU (as in mom) that one you wanted…”

“see dear, you should have waited!”, she enthusiastically replied, and proceeded to ask me if we had another artist available. half an hour later she was in the chair.

that last one sounds more like mom might have been…and in fact she DID die with three tattoos, although they all just looked like freckles and were used to denote where cancer radiation had been applied (they use a different method to mark that now for anybody curious) which is why shane has the goal of “eventually having just ONE tattoo” ’cause they all kinda get combined, but i must keep enough separation to have always have four. can’t have less tattoos than your mom – that’s just fucked up.