Special Memories

A lot of people store their most precious gifts in boxes and albums, they even keep souvenirs. They capture these moments and try to hold on to them as long as they can. These gifts have a lot of meaning either from places they have been or people they loved. As humans, we collect a lot of memories throughout the years, of people, places, love letters, etc. We store them to remember and never forget that they are of great value to us.

Then there are others that use their body to tag memories or have something close to keep. Tattooed portraits of loved ones or pets, names of the special people in their lives, things that mean something special to the people that have them. I’m talking about tattoos. I have all the album collections full of pictures of my children when they were babies and pictures of my family. I have all the items that I collect for memories, but I also collect in tagging my body. My tattoos might disgust a lot of people. Especially those that were raised old school. What I mean is that in Mexico, women respected their bodies always, just like they were to do their housework without complaining. Here is an example of what I mean: I got my first tattoo at the age of 14 years old. I met my husband at the age of 13 at a baptism party. We danced, and after the party was over, we didn’t see each other for another year. At the time, I lived in Logan Square. I was born and raised in Uptown for 11 years. My mother, being a single mother, decided to move closer to my father’s sister. She figured that if we were close to my father’s family, we could connect and somehow bond. But that didn’t work.

We moved back to Uptown not knowing anyone. But by coincidence, one day while I was shopping in the corner store, I bumped into the guy I danced with at the party the year before. He didn’t recognize me at first and I didn’t have the nerve to talk to him because I was afraid that I would get embarrassed or make a fool of myself. So I grabbed what I was going to grab, paid for it and left as fast as I could. A couple days after our encounter, we were introduced by one of my former classmates from elementary school that lived close by. We started talking again and hanging out. After a while, we ended up going out formally. I then made the decision to get a tattoo with his initial and my initial with a heart in the middle without knowing if the relationship was actually going anywhere. I was so young and made a stupid decision. I know what you are probably thinking, “Where were your parents?” Or, “What was going on at home?” Well, like I mentioned earlier, my mother was a single mother raising three girls by herself. I did a lot of things that were not very smart when I was younger. But this tattoo means a lot to me. From my teenage years to adulthood, I am still with the same person. He is the father of my four beautiful children. He is my first and only real love.

My other tattoos have great meaning as well. I have 11 tattoos in total. One is a rose that I got at the age of 15. It’s really nothing too special. I was just going through some craziness. I have the nickname “Star” that I got when I was living with my father. I lived with him, his wife, and three sons for about two months. The kids that lived in the same building complex used to play soccer and always called me for a match with them, and since I was the only girl to score on them, they always called me “Star.” The rest of my tattoos I got in recent years. My feather with the bird is in remembrance or a tribute to the people I loved that has passed away. These being: My mother-in-law, uncle, and maternal grandmother, people that I cherished and loved. The Dolphin tattoos represent the name of my husband and my second child, Delfino. It sounds like Delfin, which means Dolphin. My heart with lyric meaning is about music. I was on the praise and worship team at the church I used to attend. The stars on the inside of my forearm are five stars that represent my little family. My eclipse tattoo means love to me, the sun kissing the moon. I've never been a romantic person but when I saw this drawing, it sucked me in. It means that the sun will always be with the moon, no matter the distance. The last tattoo that I have is a cross with praying hands in the middle. This shows that I’m Christian. But the other reason that I got it is because I lost my cousin to gang violence last year. He was affiliated with a gang many years ago but quit because of kidney failure. Finally, after a long time of waiting for a transplant, he got a new kidney. But within a few months, he was killed in a drive-by shooting. We grew up together and were as close as brother and sister throughout our childhood until he started hanging out with the wrong people. He had the praying hands on his announcement card and I decided to get that tattoo because he too was a man of God.
We all have a different way of storing things and keeping them close to our hearts. My special memories are kept through different tattoos.