The Story of Calinn’s Sleeve Tattoo

Roses

The last few years my mom really enjoyed walking around the farm and gardening. My mom, Wendy, was so beautiful and full of life. She loved music, especially Christian pop music. There’s a song “I am a flower quickly fading. Here today and gone tomorrow.” was playing a lot after my mom passed and it resonated with me. She was this bright beautiful flower we got to enjoy for a brief moment.

My mom was always the one to ‘stop and smell the roses’. She took the time to enjoy little things. I loved going on walks with her and pointing out small fascinating things. When we went on trips together we would just explore and find entertainment in the mundane.

Serenity, my daughter, has a strong connection to my mom. She’s never known Grandma Wendy. For years, it was too difficult for me to talk about her. Serenity would say things like, “Grandma Wendy would like this,” and she’d always be right. She helped me get through the hardest thing in my life; losing my mom. It was so painful. Her young, little mind would ask me powerful questions like, “If people go to heaven when they die, why is everyone so sad when people die. They should be happy. Cows are in heaven.”  My mom was a dairy farmer. Comments like that made me so happy, and sad, at the same time.

Serenity was a birth control baby. I went to a crisis center when I found out I was pregnant. I really did not want children and I knew it would change my life forever. I wanted a career and stability. Back when I was a teen, my my mom shared with me how she had had an abortion before I was born. But I didn’t realize how much it had impacted her life until she began seeking support groups and therapy for it decades later. My mom’s experience and her transparency guided me to keep my little Serenity.

My mom was with me in the hospital the day Serenity was born. She said she had never seen a baby being born and was so grateful to be able to be there. She was supposed to be out of town that day, but as fate would have it, her plans got canceled.

When my mom was in hospice, she would say that she had “the best medicine” as she turned to look at the little baby she was holding. It’s still so painful to think about my kids not being able to spend more time with my mom.

The Cow

Honestly, Holsteins weren’t my mom’s favorite but I thought it represented dairy farming. Originally the tattoo artist sketched bull, and I laughed- You can’t milk a bull. Farming was a lot of work, and extremely taxing on my mom. But to me, the cow represents how hardworking she was. She never complained about the manual labor or thought of it as a “man’s job”. My mom grew up on a farm, so she had always carryied her weight from the start. Without knowing it, she taught us about gender equality.  The cow reminds me of how she cried any time we lost a calf. She was so compassionate and loved the animals. She took it very personally if any of the cows died.

The Headdress

My mom was in pageants as a teen. She was a gymnast and baton twirler, and she enjoyed reliving those days any chance she got. She loved playing dress-up and acting goofy. She never cared what others thought of her silliness. The headdress represents her youth and her beauty. And a cow wearing a headdress: Perfectly suits my mom!

I talk about my mom anytime someone compliments my ink. Like many people, my tattoo is a representation of a devastating time in my life. We have all grown so much from this pain, and I wouldn’t have grown into the person I am today the love, support, and time I had with my incredible mom, Wendy.