Inked in grief LIFESTYLE
How memorial tattoos have become a trendy way to commemorate lost loved ones: art and memories come together to help individuals cope with loss
MADASYN KOST mkost@cjournal.ca
I
t’s a guarantee that you will experience loss in your lifetime. Grief over a loved one can cause pain, sorrow, anger and stress. Isabella Gauvin, who’s only 17, recently got her first memorial tattoo. A memorial tattoo is exactly what it sounds like. Simply put, it’s a tattoo that represents a person that is no longer alive. Quite often, people choose to get images or items that remind them of their loved ones. It’s also common to have a piece of their handwriting replicated as a tattoo. Memorial tattoos are becoming increasingly popular. A 2014 study done by psychology student Kaitlyn Burden at Memorial University found that out of 306 participants, 18 per cent reported having a memorial tattoo. The same study (whose respondents were 18 to 75 years old) also found that perceptions of memorial tattoos were more positive than non-memorial tattoos. Memorial tattoos are a way to keep the memories of loved ones alive. Many people believe this type of tattoo helps heal and repair them. Gauvin, who attends high school here in Calgary, recently lost her great-grandfather Bruno. He meant so much to her and her mother Rainey that the pair decided to get matching tattoos, a first for both of them. The tattoo, which reads Bello, is a tribute to the nickname he had for the women in his life. “Right before he passed away he was in a hospice, and he didn’t recognize anyone and couldn’t even open his eyes really, but the last time I saw him he recognized me and he called me Bello,” said Gauvin. Bello, which means ‘beautiful’ in Italian is something Gauvin remembers her great-grandfather calling her often. Even at the end of his life, that nickname and bond was strong. She wanted her first tattoo to be meaningful and luckily for her, her mom agreed this was a good choice. “My mom wasn’t sure about my age, being under 18, but we both agreed that this was something very special to us and she knew that even if we waited a year until I was 18, I would get it anyways,” she said. The two had a shared appointment when they got their tattoos which provided a nice bonding experience for the mother-daughter duo. There is no “legal age” to get a tattoo in Alberta however, most tattoo shops require customers to be at least 18. Some shops will allow underage tattooing but many require a parent’s consent. When deciding where on her body to place the tattoo, Gauvin says she wanted it near her heart which is why she chose to have it done on her ribs. The tattoo itself is black and white, a rose with a stem that reads Bello in soft script. While she hasn’t had the tattoo for long, Gauvin says she
LEFT: photograph of Danielle Schulmeister and her grandmother Heather picking Saskatoon berries off a tree in her grandmother’s backyard. RIGHT: Tattoo replication of the photograph. PHOTO: COURTESY OF DANIELLE SCHULMEISTER already feels closer to her great-grandfather. “I had a really hard time after he passed and I still haven’t really gotten over it. But having it with me [the tattoo] just makes me feel like he’s with me more than I already did,” she said. Memorial tattoos mean something to the artists too Kaylie Heschel, a tattoo artist at Atticus Tattoo, has been doing memorial tattoos as long as she’s been tattooing which is nearly six years. “I believe people get tattoos because they want to feel a stronger connection to loved ones, a stronger connection to friends and just help them remember that they’ve lived life, they’ve had adventures,” Heschel said. In her line of work, Heschel meets new people almost every day and says she loves hearing their stories and helping them create lasting memories of their loved ones.
“It makes me so happy that as a tattoo artist I can give that feeling to someone who’s lost an important part of their family or important friends.” There are many types of memorial tattoos. Some people pay tribute to their pets, some are for dear friends and others represent a loss of people they may have never even met. Heschel recalls one of her most emotional memorial tattoos was for a couple who lost their child to miscarriage. The parents gave her a sealed envelope with the baby’s footprints, something they hadn’t even opened themselves yet. “It was probably the moment I realized how much trust, how much people are putting to me to create something special for them,” Heschel said. “I had to take a moment away from the couple because I got quite teary just looking at the size of these little footprints.”
CALGARYJOURNAL.CA
MAY/JUNE 2021
11
