A Word About Tattoos 

My wife recently spent several weeks in a skilled nursing facility, due to a fall she had. And there were so many wonderful nurses and other attendants who helped in her care. One of the nurses had a large tattoo on her left arm that I noticed one day while visiting. 

She said it was in honor of her daughter who died. “Oh, wow. You lost a daughter?” said my wife the patient. “That must be an inexpressible pain. I am so sorry.” Our nurse nodded her head, looking away a bit, as she continued to care for my wife. And then, almost as an aside, she said, “I have two daughters who died. One seven years ago, and one five years ago. This tattoo is in honor of my daughters.” And I peeked just beneath the thin façade of the ink flowers drawn on her arm and saw an unspeakable story she wanted documented for the world to see. A floral tattoo in honor of them. The two little girls no longer among the land of the living.

What followed was an explanation and a remembering and tears that such remembering inevitably produce. And I watched and listened, as my wife, the mother, discussed on a mother-level I will never know or completely understand her concern and care and identification with another mother what it must be like to experience such a profound loss, and know such an unspeakable pain. Our nurse explained the chromosome abnormalities that both daughters were afflicted with that caused their deaths. But I watched and I listened as these two left their roles as patient and care-giver, and entered a different kind of room of understanding. I almost felt as though I had disappeared, like some unimportant piece of furniture in the room, my presence was no longer noticed or even appreciated. Two mothers were conversing about two daughters one of them had lost; two children who were being remembered by a beautiful floral tatoo. A message in flowers that essentially said, “You are seen. You are loved.
You are remembered.”

Some stories don’t need more words to be expressed. Just presence. Two mothers talked in a different kind of room, now. Not a hospital room, not even a memory room—more like a sanctuary. A place where grief wasn’t solved or silenced. It was visited and experienced and shared.

Some loves are so deep they don’t need more words to be expressed. Some stories are so profound and important they need to be engraved. 

The words of Isaiah, in chapter 29.

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you. See—I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” (Isaiah 49:15–16)

When I reflect on that beautiful floral tattoo on that loving mother’s left arm, I’m also reminded of the indelible imprints in the palms of a loving Savior’s hands, forever declaring:“I remember you. You matter. And the love I have for you will never fade or disappear.” Happy Mothers Day.