At A Glance Author jrh Contact [email protected] When N/A Artist Jay Studio Midwest Tattoo Location Indianapolis The opportunity to change my body through Tattoo's & Piercing occurred much later in life than most. You'd say I was middle-age. Possibly, people would say I was too old to do this or was it necessary. As you'll see it most definitely YES!
After marriage, I was the normal conservative business man who would never thought of any body-mod. How could I go about seeing customers, marked up with some design? But my wife did! She watched her friends have their name in Chinese characters on their necks, the Rolling Stones '40 Licks' design on their breast, but she could have none of this because she was diabetic and the fear of needles causing her problems prevented her from having tattoos.
The opportunity for my mods came about because of her untimely death from a staff infection. I wanted to have something very different to remember her by that was totally personal to both of us and I choose to have the process started with tattoos.
My start very simply by most peoples standards, with just her name on my abdomen. I was afraid of both the pain (which there was none) and that some of my colleagues would see it a, making fun of the 'old guy'. With the positive experience, I expanded by having the first large tattoo of her picture, flanked by a 'Wedding Bell' symbol showing our marriage date and a 'Headstone' symbol showing her birth and death date. I found this wonderful as I now had her picture with me everywhere! With the help of Jay, we expanded to my lower chest, by designing a heart that was like the old TV series 'I Love Lucy', with my wife's name taking the place of Lucy. To the top of the heart, we added pictures of my wife at the three stages of her life - when we met, in her thirties and at her death.We came up with some further ideas, having a heart with a key in it as she was the key to my life and then the heart broken in two pieces, as her death really changed me. With our Irish background, Ja y designed a Cladaugh, connecting our initials for my upper chest. Next went the Phoenix design that tells all that looks, we are separated for now but will be back together soon.
As the chest area became full, we next went to placing our marriage photo on my back. We plan to place a photo of our first meeting to the left of this picture and to the right, our last picture together. To its base, we'll add our 25th wedding anniversary picture.
It may sound 'strange' but I know can see her every morning in my mirror as I shave. And, I never have to carry a picture with me if someone asks, as I can readily show them my only love.
A tattoo of my wife served one purpose but there had to be more I could do. I know I found my next step watching the piercing that was also done at Jay's studio. Again it started in 'baby' steps of having my nipples pierced at 14 GA with rings. Then having a gold letter "C" that I gave my wife many years ago brought the idea of having it placed on nipple piercing after the size was tapered to 10 GA. Now every day as I walk this moves with me, reminding me of her presence. But the other nipple seemed lonely, so the idea of a surrounding surface piercing to the nipple came about. We made if look like a square so 8 beads were exposed, which signified five years for each bead we were together from dating to marriage.
Since I have made the decision in life that there can be no other partner for me as my wife goes beyond just the marriage partner, we worked on placing jewelry in the genital area. By my decision and thinking was, if I was ever tempted, a woman, seeing many piercing on the penis would be turned off and I'd be left alone. To this point, I have the standard PA but start down the shaft as follows: 8 GA barbell (soon to be tapered to 6 GA for an eyelet), 6 GA eyelet (will be tapered to reach a 2 GA eyelet), 6 GA CBR, 8 GA barbell (will be tapered to 6 GA eyelet), followed by 15 12 GA barbells. On the upper side of the shaft, we have placed four 12 GA barbells in a slanted design. Surface piercing go above the pubic bone and soon will be enhanced with a design in dermal anchors. Not to be forgotten is the navel, which currently has a 12 GA ring that carries another gold initial of my wife. We plan to add dermal anchors on the lower side of the navel.
With the position I hold in public life, I cannot add piercings to the facial area that I really want. But the day will come when I finally quit the business world that I can have jewelry added, of which some will come from the saved jewelry she had.
Why all of this you may ask, which is a good question that maybe a 'shrink' would be better in answering? Loosing a wife, who was more than that as she was my best friend, will cause major grief. I really think that getting over the grief of loosing her was mitigated by the ability I have had to change my body to remind me of her. It's only now that I've been able to give her the tattoos she asked me to have done for so many years while she was alive. What is the sadness, I only wish that I had done this earlier so she could have been alive to see what she meant to me.