董

After several years of sitting on a tattoo idea, I finally did it.

I'm officially inked.

For several years, I played around with the idea of a potential tattoo. I'm not the type to change my body for cheap aesthetics. Fuck plastic surgery and crash diets. Forget piercings anywhere but on my ears (although I can/do appreciate body/facial piercings on others). But tattoos have always been a less absolute concept. I knew I would never be the type to get one just to get one or to get one because it was visually beautiful or gave me a certain vibe or appearance. That shit is for life, and if you know anything about me, I make damn sure that I can suffer the consequences before diving into anything long-term. I don't want to be in my 60's, skin stretched and sagging (worst case scenario, because I do plan on being a milf), wondering why the fuck I ended up tattooing a sparrow on my back or a barcode on my forearm (not to say these designs are always deplete of meaning... but come the fuck on). If I don't want to be wearing the exact same style of shoes (likely the exact same style to be found on hundreds of other people), every single day, for the rest of my life, why would I want the same shit on my body?

I'm not sure when exactly I got the idea, but family was the first theme that came to me. If there was anything that would stay with me for life, if there was anything that I would carry with me forever, physically and visually, it would something to do family.

The ironic thing is, I wouldn't say that I have been super close to any of my family members. I grew up without seeing most of my relatives; my dad traveled a lot when I was young; I was the only child for 13 years; I had very loving parents but a fairly formal relationship with them in the sense that I did not share a lot of my personal life with them -- not until I was well into my 20's. But I think I've always felt a certain distance with my parents, a distance that was sometimes painfully obvious because they were all I had as family in the U.S.

I remember observing the interactions between certain friends and their parents, and wondering why my family dynamic had to be so different. And it wasn't necessarily a self-imposed distance on my or their part. For some reason, we just naturally developed a relationship where we shared very little other than the typical -- academics, friends, and very occasionally, relationships.

I've written often about the relationship I had with my dad. It had been incredibly tense and awkward at times, but when the shit hit the fan, he always came through as the most dependable, positive, caring, generous and grounded person. Whether it was dealing with death in the family or my teenage heartbreak, he was there, and he stood strong, for everyone.

I've always known that I owe so much to my parents. I'm proud of the way they've raised me, and I'm eternally grateful for how they have provided for me, how selfless and responsible they've been and continue to be. I think the concept of having tattoos to do with each of them came to me in my college years as I realized that I always want to remember them. To be grateful for all that I have. To be aware that as much as I choose to depend on myself and my friends, as much as we may not have the idealistic, picturesque familial relationship, they are what brought me here. And I admitted to myself that I often forget -- forget that they're there, forget that they are so incredibly important, forget that I can depend on them. Forgetting is not something I want to do. And at some point, several years ago, the idea came to me to have my dad's family name and my mom's family name, in traditional calligraphic Chinese script, on each of my arms.

The idea remained an idea for a long time. When I went back to Taiwan last year with my dad to see his dying father, I felt similar conflicting sentiments as I did when I was 10, watching my mom's father wither and die from Parkinson's. To this day, I continue to say that the only regret I've ever had was my inability to be more brave, my inability to still love him, speak to him, and treat him like the grandfather that had raised me, taught me Japanese, and took me on moped rides. Instead, I treated him like the disease made him a stranger. I withdrew with fear, and I became silent. Granted, I was 10, but regrets like that hold no place in time or age.

This time, at age 24 and watching my dad's father deteriorate, I was adamant about being "better." Being a supportive granddaughter. Being loving and present and everything I wasn't 15 years ago. But this grandfather was not someone I knew well. He was not someone I really ever had a relationship with. He was not emotionally strong. He would wimper and cry as he reflected on his ailing body, and I would sit there, eventually out of things to say, feeling frustrated at my silence and shameful of my desire to tell him that he simply can't fall apart like this. Because who was I, his granddaughter, to say and do anything but all the "right" things? The bottom line was, apart from the fact that we were related by blood, he was almost a stranger. But the sense of familial duty was so strong that the subsequent guilt was all I felt. But I realize that the most important thing in being there was not so much to see my grandfather, as I originally thought, but to be there for my dad. To be there with my dad.

My dad was graceful with his grief. He would pull me aside, knowing that I would lie awake, hearing my grandfather cry in the middle of the night, and tell me, "Your grandfather lived a long, good life. He's in his 90s, has overcome a lot, and is a lucky man. He has a lot to be grateful for." His voice never wavered when he spoke to his dying father. His gaze never faltered.

During that trip to Taiwan, I decided I would get two wooden chops made in a particular calligraphic script -- 篆書 -- of my mom and dad's family name. I had them made in my mom's hometown while traveling with my dad. He asked me what they were for. I just shrugged and said, "I just want them." Explaining a tattoo (that has to do with him) to him? Pffft.

It took me a while after my dad's death to feel like it was the right time. But as time went by, I saw more and more of how much I loved him. How, despite our frustrating inability to speak openly about most things, regardless of how unrelenting his sternness could be or how strange his temperament was, that I admired him and respected him so, so deeply. And I realized that I had not told him I loved him. Not since I could remember. But I loved him, more than I thought I ever did.

"董" is my family name. It is my dad's family name. It is my grandfather's family name. In Chinese, it looks almost identical and sounds identical to "懂," which means "to understand." Every day, it will sit beautifully on my left arm. Every day, I will be reminded. And every day, I will remember to spend a moment with him.