From Ashes to Ink | Explorer

I do tend to get tattoos pretty much when I'm either stressed out or making a big change in my life. They help relieve a lot of stress for me. There's so many different reasons for people to get tattoos; they've gotten tattoos too to fit in, or they've gotten tattoos because they love the art. It's very popular to get memorial tattoos.

March 6, I got a phone call from my mom. She called me Mariah, and that's my government name, you know. There was a really long pause. She very just kind of flat-out said, "Your father died last night; he got hit by a car." I really just didn't know what to do. It was just the worst thing that I could have ever heard in my life. He was the coolest guy that you could ever meet. I mean, seriously, like I was his number one fan. He's super rock and roll.

Me and my father definitely shared the love of tattoos. I remember when I first got my artwork, he went insane. He was just like, "Baby, that's so awesome! Like, that's such a killer tattoo!" And he was just blown away by the artwork.

When my mom made me the necklace with the ashes inside of the vial, I remember not putting it around my neck for, I want to say, months. Like, I just had it up on my dresser, and I would stare at it. The fact that my dad was minced inside of this little tiny bottle, I just kind of was in denial about just the whole thing. Finally, when I put that around my neck, I remember just an overwhelmingly sensation, feeling that my father was very much with me. That's his ashes in a vial; this is now going to be in my skin. How much deeper can you really get?

I remember when he came to visit me for about a week. I want to say this was four months before the accident. He was telling me that he wanted to design some tattoos for me, and I was like, "Okay, you know, like what's it gonna be like?" You know, "I'm thinking a skull would look really awesome on you." And I'm like, "Dad, like come on! Like, no, I'm not getting a skull tattooed on me. Like that's stupid."

Everybody asks, you know, does it hurt? As a painful? It is painful; it's excruciating, but it's tolerable. And I think that that actually kind of resembles what life is, you know. It's excruciating; it's very painful, but it's tolerable.

I don't know what to expect as far as how I'll feel, but I'm actually going to see my dad like in my arm, and I think that he would do that for me too. I think he made it; I think I'm loved.

It definitely feels different than any of the other tattoos that I have. If my dad was here, he would definitely say, "This is bad," something that was like his favorite word.