true love exists and we can be good

Y has a thing about needles. She always has. Over the course of 22 years, she's moved beyond visible freak out in the doctor's office to simply cutting off the circulation in a companion's hand, but still, her needle issue remains. So when she decided to get a tattoo, I knew she had been doing some serious thinking. It turns out that she had -- for a couple of years. She knew the design: one of my dad's painting seals, the vermillion-colored signatures that appear on every traditional Chinese painting. She knew the placement: the inside of her right wrist.

She called early this summer to ask if I would be willing to hold her left hand while she got the tattoo, because she imagined it would smart to get all that needling done.

I heard myself say into the phone, "Maybe I'll get one with you." "Really?" she asked. "Mom's going to get one, too," I heard her tell her sister. "Okay," said T. "I will, too."

It took a lot of planning, working with the seals, photoshopping them into the tidy, tattooable form you see here. We talked and talked, because that's what we do, about which of his many seals to get. Also, Y was worried that T and I hadn't taken years to agonize about it, since she had, so we needed to talk about that.

Because for Y, the tattoo was filled with meaning. For her, she said, the tattoo would be a reminder that true love exists, and that such love was embodied by my parents. Also, she says, the seal is a visible reminder that we are capable of being as good as they were.

For me, it meant a road trip with my daughters and an investment in a fun memory. My tattoo would be a visible reminder that we are capable of fun road trips.

My friend Phuc Tran is a tattoo artist up in Portland, Maine. He is the one who so kindly offered to tattoo nipples for me when mine were lost in the collision with breast cancer. Phuc was the only one we wanted to shepherd us through this experience.

Y was anxious -- had probably been anxious about this for two years, because that's what she does when there is a needle on the horizon, however distant. T volunteered to go first so that Y could see the process from start to finish. Here you can see T lying on the table, having a grand old time getting a tattoo on her ankle.

Seemed like a piece of cake. Y went next, as Phuc suggested it would be good to get hers over with.

The next time I support Y through a painful experience like that, I expect there to be a baby at the end of it. She had a very hard time, with terrible pain.

Poor kid, I thought. Can't take pain. I took another sip of my chai.

Then it was my turn. I hopped cheerfully onto the table and let Phuc shave my hairless ankle.

Well. Hats off to all those people who get more than one tattoo; that's all I can say. It's like, "Tattoo me once, shame on...me. Tattoo me twice, and...you can't tattoo me twice." Isn't that how George Bush put it? First thing he and I agree upon.

But T! What a hero! What a faker! Only when I was getting tattooed did T let on that it had hurt her something fierce. "Really hurts, doesn't it, mom?!" she asked as my eyes bugged out of my head and my jaw unhinged in silent alarm.

T hadn't wanted Y to be any more scared than she already was. She protected her sister by being as calm as possible.

T showed us both that true love exists; that we can be good. And now we have the tattoos to remind us whenever we forget.