Doing tattoo research, i see what you did there.....

It amuses me to see the hater remarks toward another person getting inked. I'll admit, I may be biased due to my own ink addiction, but who really cares if another has something on their body that you would not even consider? It's not your body.

In total, I have eleven tattoos. Of the eleven, eight of them were done with true emotional intent. The other three were done when I decided to dabble in the art as a hobby.

For many, tattoos are a means to honor, not just some random crap that hung on some hillbilly's wall to be given to the two millions others with the same tattoo.

For example, shortly before my eldest son Fenix was born, my grandmother had become very ill. As time progressed, her condition became terminal. The day of her funeral, literally on the way to, my wife and I got a phone call from her OB about some test results. We were ordered to the nearest hospital for immediate birth inducement on the warning that it may already be too late.

As such, we turned the car around and headed to the hospital, missing my grandmother's funeral. Instead of mourning a death, we were able to celebrate life.

My grandmother was an amazing woman. She lived a very long and eventful life, and died with little regret. She had stated that her only regret was that she would not be able to see the birth of her first grandchild.

That night, I left the hospital while the wife and kid were sleeping and headed straight to an old high school friend who had a long established tattoo shop in our home town. I had no intention of getting my first tattoo.

We smoked a cigar in celebration of my son, and toasted a few shots to the memory of my grandmother. All the while he sat with a sketch pad, drawing and jotting images and verses of both the birth and the death.

At the end of the night, he tore the page from the book and handed it to me on my way out the door.

The end results was a Grim Reaper, in the midst of a pyre, and cradling a Phoenix, much like a mother would a child. Below the image was a quote that read, "We mourn not a memory, but instead celebrate legacy."

The next day, I received my first tattoo.

Just as artists of centuries before painting murals of figures and events as a memorial or tribute so that all who see can be reminded, a tattoo will often serve as the same. A means to honor indefinitely.

To judge or assume with minimal or no knowledge is simple ignorance.