IMO Tattoos

Tattoos IMO Brian Hilliard
By Eileen Reichler

When I was in the first few weeks of my grieving from the loss of my youngest son, Brian, I felt like there wasn’t anything in my control. I desperately needed to have power over something. I needed to do something for my son. I started thinking about all the things that were important to Brian and one of things I thought about was his tattoo.

A year after his graduation, he took a vacation with a friend to Cancun. When he came home, he was very careful not to take off his shirt around us. Then, he made the slip-up. He answered his bedroom door without his shirt on. That’s when I saw it – the lasting remembrance of his trip to Cancun, his tattoo. I was furious. Tattoos, like piercings, were just not allowed. It quickly turned into a big joke that Mom wouldn’t allow Brian to be seen without his shirt.

Brian loved his tattoo and had no regrets about getting it. Keeping all that in mind, I realized that I could get a tattoo in his memory. As the entire family discussed it, not only did everyone think it was a great idea, but everyone else wanted to do it too. We all came up with our own idea of a design and “leased” a tattoo artist, Eric Inksmith, with Jinx Proof (Washington, D.C.), for a whole day.

Eric began first thing in the morning and we, one at a time, gave him our ideas for our tattoos. He took our ideas and put them on paper. Then he brought the ideas to life using our skin as the backdrop. We laughed all day as we talked about what Brian was thinking as we watched over his family in a tattoo parlor. After working into the wee hours of the morning, Eric completed his amazing artwork. Our tattoos were all different and were replicas of our personal memories of and with Brian.

My tattoo started out with a heart, appropriately designed over my own heart. Above the heart is a parachute, reminding me of Brian’s love for skydiving and his first serious accident as his parachute got caught in a tree and he fell to the ground. Brian knew how worried I would be about the accident, so he had the nurse at the hospital play it down, having her tell me she thought he had broken his leg. He did, indeed, crush his left leg, but after some surgery, a titanium rod and a bunch of screws and bolts, he was put back together again.

There is a banner through the heart with Brian’s name on it, but also has a picture of a cross, which is my reminder of the days when Brian was an altar server at St. Lawrence Catholic Church. Under the banner is an orange paint splotch. First of all, orange was Brian’s favorite color. Second, Brian loved to play semi-pro Paintball. He, much to my dismay, would shoot the trees in the backyard with paintballs, adding a whole new dimension to the natural colors in the woods. How fitting for me to have an orange paintball splatter on my tattoo.

Finally, the background to my tattoo – mountains. Brian truly loved the mountains. He looked forward to each and every opportunity to spend time camping out on our family’s mountaintop. In order to be able to spend more time in the mountains, we began building a cabin. Brian was having the time of his life being a part of the building process. He was the first one to write his name in the wet cement. Brian never got to help finish the cabin, but I’m sure he is with us we sit by the fireside.

I am very proud of my tattoo and will gladly show it to anyone who wants to see it. It definitely made a difference to me at the time, and I continue to appreciate its meaning every time I look at it. We were extremely fortunate to have had Eric as our tattoo artist, as he not only shared his talents with us, but also his compassionate. Like Brian, I have no regrets!

Read about our entire day at the tattoo parlorthe story and see pictures of all the tattoos IMO of Brian Hilliard

Please share with us what you have done in memory of your loved one!

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