For those of you that have followed my blog for a while might remember in March when I went to get a tattoo on my wrist as a tribute to Harry.  I had “designed” it myself, although it was quite simple:  a big bold “lmL” with the words “Forever in my heart 8.11.76-1.22.09″ underneath it.  lmL was something special between Harry, Emily and myself, kind of an “inside family joke” that turned into something so much more.  I get questioned about it ALL the time (understandably so), so here is the story behind it:

Every morning, Harry and I would together walk Emily to the bus stop to send her off to school.  One of our neighbor’s kids used to wave to her Mom from the bus, but not a normal wave, she would use the hand symbol for I love you and wave it until her Mom did it back.  The first few times, I didn’t say anything and it was a few days later that Harry brought it up to me.  He said “do you see that girl waving her hand like that all the time?”  “Yes, I do, it’s funny but very cute.” So we started to do it with Emily on the bus and she loved it.  It went from a goodbye on the bus to our goodbye all the time, no matter where we were.  Anytime we were leaving each other, we would use that hand symbol instead of waving.  Harry and Emily came up with these extensive handshakes that always included the hand symbol.  We even laughed about how our neighbors were probably making fun of us now as we had of them, but we didn’t care.  After a month or two, I realized that when you typed lmL it kind of looked like the hand symbol (the l was the pinky, the m was the middle fingers and the L was your pointy finger and thumb).  So from then on, any text message, e-mail or Facebook comment ended with lmL, in addition to our daily hand gestures.  Since Harry and I kept in contact via text messages all day, lmL was used quite often.  After I spoke at Harry’s funeral, I gave his urn the lmL hand symbol for one last time.  Emily and I still do it to this day.

So, now, that you know the meaning, let’s get back to the tattoo.  You can read the original post about the tattoo here, but I will give you the synopsis: I had attended a funeral that night for a co-worker’s Mom.  I had already drawn out the tattoo and had it in my bag and on my way home, thinking about how precious life really is, decided that I should get it done.  I said out loud: “Harry, if I should get this tattoo tonight, show me a sign!”.  No more than 3 minutes later, I came up on a tattoo shop, Lucky Cat Tattoos, in Miller Place, NY.  I said to myself, “if that isn’t a sign, I don’t know what is.”  When I walked in, there was one artist who was free at the time, Rob. While he was doing the tattoo, I noticed that he spelled Forever wrong.  He had made it Forover.  At first, he said I was wrong but then realized his mistake and made the o into an e.  At the time, it was not noticeable to anyone who didn’t know about it, but it was something that bothered me since I got it.

After a few months, the o/e started to look obvious and the For in Forever and the 09 had faded out, almost to the point that it looked like they weren’t there.  I had shown this to MANY tattoo enthusiasts who balked and asked where I had gotten it done. They had never seen anything like it, especially in a tattoo that was only a few months old.  I waited another month to make sure it was completely healed before I complained.  I happened to be in the area of Lucky Cat Tattoos one day and thought I would stop in and see what they said.  I saw the store manager.  He said that the fading was “normal” on my wrist. Normal? I had never seen anything like this before. The tattoo artist that had done my tattoo was off that day.  I told the manager, “to be honest, I don’t want that artist touching my wrist again. He spelled Forever wrong!”. His response:  “That is the only way we will fix it for free,” he said.  “If you want a new artist, you will have to pay for another tattoo”.  Considering the guy had spelled something as simple as FOREVER wrong permanently on my body, I was really taken back by this.  However, I’m broke.  I could barely afford to get it done in the first place and couldn’t afford to get it re-done.  I was told when the artist was there and to come back.  Fast forward two months.  I had gotten really busy and I don’t live near the shop anymore.  I called ahead of time and got the artist on the phone.  He couldn’t remember me or the tattoo and denied the spelling mistake. He told me to come in and he would take a look.  As soon as I stopped in, he remembered me, the tattoo and the spelling mistake.  He (and the manager) told me they didn’t want to do it that night, he wanted a picture of it so that they could draw it out and figure out what letters needed to be retraced.  He said he would call me to come in at some point that week.  A week goes by, no call.  I call them and he says, “Oh, yeah, um, just come in whenever you want”.  So, back I go.  He tells me that they decided to just go over the entire tattoo again.  So basically, I could have had it done the week earlier, but had to wait a week for no reason.

I sit down in the chair and he begins.  All went well the the majority of the tattoo, until he gets to the lettering.  He tells me he is going to redraw the F with pen since you can’t really see it.  This makes me feel better but then he changes his mind. “I can see the F fine, I will just go over it again.” WELL…I guess he couldn’t see it that well because he COMPLETELY SCREWED IT UP!!!!  See the pic below of the tattoo as soon as it was finished:

The F is crooked, smaller and not lined up with the rest of the letters.  You can still see where the top of the F used to be.  I was sooooooo mad as soon as I saw it.  After I pointed it out, he realized his mistake… but it was too late.  The manager came over and suggested making all the letters bolder to fix the F.  I said, “you are not touching my skin again”.  He told me to come back in a few weeks and they would try to figure out how to fix it AGAIN.  Basically, he screwed up the ONE THING that I went to get fixed.  I also noticed later that the 1.22 looks like 7.22 now and there is no dot over the i in the word “in” as there was before.I have never, in my life, met a group of more incompetent people.  People have said in the past few days, “it’s not THAT bad”. It’s tattooed on my body, for life.  When you get tattoos, you don’t want them to be BAD at all, only perfect will do, and this is far from it.  If this was just a tattoo that had no meaning, it would be one thing, but this is a tribute to the love of my life and it has turned into a disaster. I’m hoping that the F fades AGAIN and I will go to a tattoo artist that has actual talent to get it fixed, not some 21 year old moron who doesn’t know what he is doing.  (BTW, he has an apprentice. I don’t think he should be one to teach anyone anything).

So, a word of advice: Check out your tattoo parlor before you go.  Don’t just take the artist that is available at the time.  There is probably a reason why every other artist was busy and he wasn’t.