Tre Miller Rodriguez's Blog, page 86

6 Cliché-Free Memorial Tattoos

Like grief, tattoos are both personal and permanent. Unlike grief, tattoos are often on public display.

Altering our bodies in memoriam of someone can be a way of confronting our grief and outwardly expressing the magnitude of our loss. For those of us with ink-lination, memorial tattoos let us carry the memory of our loved ones everywhere — and, in many cases, share their stories when someone asks about the meaning behind them.

My own tattoos — a tramp stamp and one on the inner wrist — celebrate friendships with the living. But when I encounter meaningful tributes like the ones above, I contemplate adding ink for my late husband or brother. I’m not referring to tattoos with crosses, a date stamp or anything involving the phrase “In Memory Of.” I’m talking about a new generation of grief tats: Sound waves of a mother’s last voicemail to her son or replication of a father’s handwritten note on a daughter’s arm.

Here are the tribute tattoos that have compelled me to stop someone on the street (or stalk them on the Internet), along with the stories behind them.

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A/C is on. Craving flip flops + summer vegetables but could...

A/C is on. Craving flip flops + summer vegetables but could settle for a pitcher of white sangria. #splittingtheseasons #icanseespringfrommyhouse

My little book’s title is on a chalkboard at Harvard because a...

My little book’s title is on a chalkboard at Harvard because a 10-minute dramatic interpretation of it will be performed by fellow Tumblr daisyannconfused at the Harvard Speech Tournament today. Sending her all of the mojo + confidence +  heart shapes today!

If ever there’s a date to bring out your heart-shaped...

If ever there’s a date to bring out your heart-shaped souvenir from #ModernLove editor of @nytimes, Feb.14th would be it.

If ever there’s a date to bring out your heart-shaped souvenir...

If ever there’s a date to bring out your heart-shaped souvenir from the Modern Love editor at New York Times, Feb.14th is it.

A Twinkle in Time

For the past year, I’ve attended a monthly literary event called Happier Hour. Hosted by author and blogger Aidan Donnelly Rowley in her jaw-dropping townhouse, each party spotlights one book and its female author. There’s free-flowing prosecco followed by a reading, intense discussion and book selling/signing. Through Happier Hour, I’ve found new friends, new books and a few writing assignments.

Imagine the degree of SQUEEEEE I felt upon hearing that my mentor, the author Claire Bidwell Smith, was co-hosting the February Happier Hour…and that she and Aidan wanted to feature my Heart-Shaped Memoir.

At last night’s event, I soul-bared to 50 women who ranged from strangers to early readers of my manuscript. Between passages, I made eye contact with friends who knew Alberto, and with his sister, Barby. She stood at the edge of the crowd, beaming at me with the same smile Alberto would flash when I’d gotten a promotion or reorganized one of our closets.

It could’ve been Barby’s smile or the palpable joy and shared experience in the room, but I felt Alberto’s presence in a way that hasn’t happened at a reading for two years. As I spoke, time slowed to a pace that resembled the frame-by-frame awareness that happens in the first shocking moments of loss. Except in place of wanting to crawl out of my skin, the time distortion allowed me to savor each moment as I was experiencing it.

So with a sweet splash of irony, an evening of being fully present is made possible only by reliving the past.

"Thank you for navigating the exhausting journey that is putting pain to paper. Even in the little..."

“Thank you for navigating the exhausting journey that is putting pain to paper. Even in the little (but necessary) writing I have done since losing my husband, I know how much it takes of how little you have left. I hope you’re aware of the good your writing does for others—and what an amazing tribute it is to Alberto.”

- — Kayme, Kansas

#ShitDoormenSayButShouldnt

One of the perks of living in what was formerly “the largest apartment house in the world” is its six entrances, enabling you to skip an entire avenue block of winter weather just by ducking inside.

Gotta make it past the doorman, of course, but after living here for nine years, this is a non-issue.

Until this weekend.

Instead of the usual smile of recognition and remote unlocking of the lobby door, the uniformed man behind the station gives me a blank stare.

I don’t recognize him either, so I take out my earbuds and announce my building and apartment number.

Don’t you have your key card? he asks.

No, but can’t you just look up my picture?

New system isn’t working, he says stiffly, glancing at the woman waiting behind me.

Okay, I say, what else do you need? My last name’s Rodríguez—

Huh. That’s you…really? I don’t recognize you, he explains. But your ex-husband was the one who died in the building, right?

His words punch through my four layers of clothing and hit me squarely in the scar tissue.

Suddenly, I am the white elephant in the lobby vestibule.

I struggle for scalding words but all I’ve got are the fact-checking kind.

He’s my late husband, not ex, I mutter, yanking on the door, which finally opens.

My mouth is still open in shock when I pass the concierge, who greets me by name.

By the time I get upstairs, I am somewhere between seething and sorrowful.

I change out of my clothes, wash my face and take an anger walk around the apartment.

Try to settle into bed but I can’t shake it.

I want to call that doorman.

And say what?

You’re an asshat?

No.

He doesn’t realize the world of hurt that his comment inflicted.  He thinks our awkward exchange was because the system technology wasn’t working.

I get out of bed.

I verbalize what I want to say until the words come out without venom or tears.

Then I pull on pajamas and Uggs and head downstairs.

I traverse the avenue block indoors, take a deep breath and enter the same vestibule I couldn’t wait to escape an hour ago.

Listen, I say to the 40-something doorman with blank eyes.

I know you didn’t mean to hurt my feelings earlier, but you did. In the future, if you don’t recognize me—or any other widow who lives here—don’t mention that our husbands died in the building. Seriously, it’s probably one of the most insensitive things you could say to us.

I am very sorry I said this, he says, blinking. And I am sorry you had to come downstairs to tell me.

Me too, I say, but apology accepted. And hey, now you know.

"Just bought ‘Heart-Shaped Memoir’ with an Amazon gift card and I’m excited to read..."

“Just bought ‘Heart-Shaped Memoir’ with an Amazon gift card and I’m excited to read your journey because you overcame a lot of things as a young woman. My own story has involved much pain but so much triumph: at 23, I’ve survived three bouts of cancer and losing my parents. Thank you for writing your story, Tré. Maybe one day I’ll sit down and pen mine.”

- —A.M., Michigan

Heart-Shaped Bandwith

My Skype call tonight with the newly widowed woman with an elegant voice was presumably about blogging: which platforms rock (Tumblr) and which ones suck (all the other ones).

But the conversation wasn’t much about blogging. 

It was about her larger-than-life husband and their five trips to Rome. About how they sold everything two years ago to move to Panama for the hell of it. How he’d survived a major surgery only to die of complications afterward. And about how wretchedly long two months feels when you’re still measuring time in days.

Her voice contained none of the selfish edge or panic that mine had at six weeks into the widow’s walk. In its place was a wisdom and peace that I’m not sure mine will ever contain. 

Yet in the space between my goofiness and her grace was the immediate kinship of shared loss. A finish-the-other-person’s-thought or sob-quietly-in-unison kind of kinship. A profoundly human connection made possible by Google search, social media and Skype.