My parents’ views held me back. And yet that tattoo would have celebrated them. I came from them, and they were so shockingly impermanent that it took me decades to come to terms with their absence from my life.

Tattoos are a unique love project for people who have suffered traumatic loss. I heard and saw this in the ‘Death Matters’ workshops which Grant Broadbent and I’ve run.  A tattoo is a continuing bond with the person who died. If I’d had a tattoo I could have stroked it when I was feeling sad. It would have been an unambiguous gesture, a step to recovery. An internalised, external sign.

I met Chris Latimer and Danielle Pullin at the 2019 Story Conference in Melbourne. Danielle and I heard Chris present on her work with a Transport Accident Commission’s Road Trauma Support Services program. She stood up front and relayed her experience of traumatic loss. Chris has spoken to thousands of people in government agencies, community groups, prisons and schools about how her daughters lost their lives through separate car accidents involving others’ culpable driving. Like me, people in her audiences shiver. How can one person suffer so much? And then be so warm and open towards all of us?

Chris, Danielle and I sat on the lawn for lunch. I noticed Chris’ tattoos. I saw that Danielle has one also. Text. I’m a sucker for tattoos in text! When I asked them to tell me about their tattoos I knew there were big stories behind them. I thought they might hesitate. Not a bit of it, as my mother would say. We hardly had time to eat our lunches, and had to make a date to follow up in my studio another day.

Death, a love project – the role of tattoos in traumatic loss

Annie: I don’t have any tattoo and I’m sure that’s to do with how my parents thought about them. What about you?

Chris: My mum and dad were very against them. In those days they were for people from the navy, the ones who ran away to sea. They were vagabonds, rough men. It’s different now. Yeah getting a tattoo went against the values I grew up with.

Danielle: ‘I hope that’s not permanent,’ my mum said when she saw mine. She was devastated. She came from an upper class family and an era where you did not put marks on your body. “Well, no, it’s not permanent, it’s only going to last about 40 years!” I said.

‘I was thinking about how it wasn’t permanent because it’ll go with me. She was dying then, and I think she faded back into sleep. We never spoke about it again.’

Danielle – everything is impermanent, nothing lasts forever

Annie: So you were thinking of your own death in those times, with her dying … Can you say a bit about the line you chose – it’s Shakespeare isn’t it?

Danielle: That in black ink my love may still shine bright. It’s from Shakespeare’s sonnet no. 69.

‘I’d wanted this tattoo since I was 15. So when I did it in my late thirties I felt my independence. I felt excitement. New identity.

‘I’d had a child. I was sleep deprived and isolated. You have to re-invent yourself when you’ve entered into all that and don’t know who you are any more! I booked a trip to Sydney by myself for seven days. The first thing I did was find a leading female tattooist – well known for her cursive – and I cut my hair, and skipped the conference I was booked for!’

Annie: What did you say about cursive?

Danielle: It’s fine line work … when you put words on your body you want the text to be perfectly clear and to stay that way.

Annie: Chris calls herself the grandma with the dragonfly tattoo, what about you?

Danielle: I don’t know … I have to think about that.

Chris: The rebel …

Danielle: I am so not a rebel! The significance of those words are: firstly that I’ve always loved writing and literature. Then the line also conveys the Buddhist idea of anicca – everything is impermanent, nothing lasts forever.

‘I can remember clearly at 15 being at the beach. I’d memorised that poem. At that time I was obsessed with death …

Chris: … like all the other 15 year-olds …

Danielle: And I thought: as soon as I’m old enough I’ll have those words as a tattoo. It was a statement that spoke directly to my question: How on earth to find solace from fear of death?

Annie: That’s such a big story, what you had on your mind as a young woman, and how it led to getting the tattoo done. Chris can I ask what you noticed when you knew you were going to get your tattoos?

Chris, the grandma with the dragonfly tattoo

Chris: With my first tattoo, my daughter Nicky had already designed it and had it drawn on her wrist at one time to see how it’d look. It has the central motif of a star from the Swedish heavy metal band H.I.M. and her design around the outside. After her crash I was going through her things with my niece and we found it.

‘We went together. She also had Nicky’s design done. The same design on the other foot to me.

‘I felt great anticipation that I was going to have something of Nicky forever. The design was something she’d put thought into.  I was 52. After that I thought I’d never ever have another tattoo. It was so painful.

‘But there was another one.

‘Six years after her crash, my daughter Nicole died from complications of the brain injury that she received. My sister had come down from Queensland. We were planning the funeral. It was a tragic, chaotic time.

‘I was called to the door by a neighbour coming round. I hardly had the energy to stand there talking, but suddenly, unexpectedly I saw a dragonfly. When I saw that dragonfly at my window I felt inspired again. We’d never seen a dragonfly at our place, and I knew that it was … I felt conviction. The dragonfly is a symbol of change. I related it back to Nicky and the changes she had in her life and how she adapted to those changes with courage and laughter. My life was going to change again forever.

‘My sister also had the dragonfly tattoo  done. We went together. That’s where the tattooist christened me ‘the grandma with the dragonfly tattoo’.

‘Later, a year after this terrible loss, I was in Cambodia with ten other women. I wasn’t in a great place in myself. We went to the Killing Fields. There in that terrible place where these horrific things had happened, where the Killing Fields stretched out for miles, there were thousands of butterflies. I strongly associate butterflies with my other daughters who’d died in the other accident, Melissa and Wendy. I knew I had to find a place that did tattoos and we only had three days before coming home.

‘One of the girls found a tattooist, up, up, up above a bar totally in the open. She turned out to be an Australian. And she did a beautiful job.

‘What I noticed was that I felt a sense of urgency to get that tattoo done. It was about the connection to the country of Cambodia and the collective suffering of the people. It meant so much more that I was able to have it done there.

Motherhood, life from a place of heart and survival

Annie: Can you talk about the tattoos as part of your imaginative life you two?

Chris:  I love them. It gives me a sense of difference. No one has these marks. My stories are unique. No one has the same story. Though my sister and my niece have the same tattoos they have different stories as the aunt and cousin. The artistry tells the story on my body.

Danielle: I identify with that – mine makes me feel different. When I had it done I felt I’d become part of the secret club of people who have tattoos. I’ve got an idea that I’ll have more done. I picture flowers threading through it. Mum’s favourite flowers. Poppies, she loved poppies. Violets for my grandmother. The colours of flowers weaving through the black text.

Annie: I’m very touched by your story. One day you’ll be celebrating your mum and your grandmother colourfully, in such a feminine way. Chris, can you talk about the connection that the tattoos create for you?

Chris: People do ask me about them. And there will be a reference to my daughters. I do talk about my daughters a lot. They’ll ask “What’s the meaning of this one?” I wear mid sleeves, I’ve always worn them. The images are on my forearms. I need to be able to see them.

Danielle: I’m surprised how few people ask me about mine … even some of my closest friends. You’re one of the first people to ask me Annie. I see people discreetly try to read it …

Chris: Like I did! …

Danielle: And I just want to say come on, you can ask about it!

‘For me it’s a lot to do with motherhood – in relation to my own mother, and to my daughter, and me as a mother. Mum was so important to me. She really did turn me into someone who loves writing and literature.’

Annie: Chris if you were with someone who’d experienced traumatic loss what might you say to them about getting a tattoo?

‘I’d encourage it. It’s not for everyone of course, but I’d say ‘Do it!’ because I love them. They’re a statement of … they’re almost like battle scars. Even though they’re pretty pictures they’re not. They’re battle scars. Not that you need to have something visible and tangible to remember someone you’ve lost. The big guys I work with in prison know. They’ll say, “You’re a warrior, you’re a fighter.”

‘The purpose that grew for me from the death of the girls is something that’s led me into all sorts of different experiences. My girls all died in road accidents that could have been avoided. My purpose is to let people know that.

‘The tattoos are very very personal and heartfelt. It’s almost like there’s a need for a bit of pain also when you’re making your way through such difficult times. There’s value in a tattoo. You have to pay good money for one. It’s an investment. It’s going to be there forever. You want it to be the best it can be.’

Annie: Danielle I meet quite a few people at events that I run who are or have been obsessed with death. It’s troubled them deeply. What would you say to them about your experience of getting your tattoo?

‘Well I don’t know if a tattoo would cure an existential crisis! But it’s a gesture that says you’re not alone. Maybe no one understands, but you’re not alone. My fear of death really took a toll on me. I had to move through it.

‘These words represent the only way I’ve found to be at peace with the fact that we’re all hurtling towards the inevitable. You have to live now. This moment will pass, and you have to accept that in its good and its bad sense. This will change. There’s the timelessness of that. Time can become such an enemy … you have to accept that it’s going to get you.

Chris: When you’re young death is such an unknown …

Danielle: And we don’t talk about it in our culture. Annie does, but we don’t talk about it. No wonder young people feel alone with that.

Chris: I’m not afraid of death now and I think that’s because I’ve had so much death around me. Mum, Dad, my girls, now my brother. It doesn’t frighten me. It’s given me life in a sense, or an appreciation of life. My life comes from a place of heart and also a place of survival. I have three choices – I can continue with purpose, end it sooner, or live in the wreckage. I do what I do – and it’s hard work – it’s the choice I make.

Wrapping up

Annie: So there’s just one thing I want to say … Danielle, I hope that you do those flowers around the words. I can see just see it …

Chris: Oh yes Danielle do! What you described is so beautiful. I can see it too. Do it, it’s all your journey.

Annie: Even if you just do some work on the design for the moment … that could be so enjoyable … looking at all the books in which people have represented flowers. It could take ages.

Danielle: It could! And, wow it’s three o’clock already, I must get going to pick up my daughter.

Annie: Oh Chris and Danielle, thanks so much, it’s been such a rich conversation. And do you want to take some basil from the garden?

The post This is a love project. Tattoos in the grief journey. appeared first on Annie Bolitho.

All the sadness in love and loss. We can only experience it. And yet there’s also a pull to make sense of it. The journey to make loss meaningful can be painfully long. Somehow  memorials play a role in this. Then as time passes, there’s something left, something to refer to, a special place to go and find something of that lost love again. We don’t want to lose what’s precious.

I was in Gippsland recently and I stepped into a wonderful restaurant, Catinalla’s. The owner Deanna is seventh generation Australian. When she married a second generation Italian, a big part of her learning was about food. What they’d eaten at home was different. Great food but so different!

Food is a love project

Deanna learned cooking from her mother-in-law, Catinalla. Sugos, stocks, fritattas. This experience lives on in the restaurant. Deanna qualified as a chef in 2015 to formalise her knowledge of cooking. Running beneath the outward effort has been a concern that real family grown food traditions don’t get lost.

That’s a memorial isn’t it? Her mother-in- law passed away in 2014. And in Traralgon, Deanna can keep the traditions going. When Catinalla was still alive, Deanna registered the business name and ran ideas past her, checked things with her. She found out the story behind the unique spelling of her name.

Intent for a love project, the vision and the will

I was a guest at the public event held in 2015 at Hamer Hall to celebrate Neilma Gantner’s rich and generous life. The program was packed with admiring speakers. One was a Parks Victoria employee who had got to know here very very well in the late 60s. Neilma had approached the government about building a hut in the Alpine National Park in memory of her son Vallejo.

Vallejo had died very young, and she was determined to create a fitting memorial that reflected his love of the mountains. She wanted it to be a beautiful place that would benefit all comers. What seemed an impossibility – putting an aesthetically extraordinary hut into the high country – became a reality, the MacAlister Springs Hut. The hut is deeply loved by bushwalkers. Designed by architect David McGlashan, with a copper roof, it is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register.

Buried, cremated or turned to goodness?

My friend Uncle Fletcher Roberts, a Bundjalung elder in Lismore, NSW, once questioned me about where I planned to be when I died. He was old and rarely left Lismore, in case he died while he was away. He asked me if it bothered me that I wouldn’t be in the same place as my parents since I’d moved to Australia.

Where were they buried?

Where are their ashes?

When I said that we’d scattered them in our garden, and that we’d sold the property, he was shocked. On reflection I think he was spot on. What might I have learned by going back to visit the place where we’d let their remains go? How would those owners react if they knew that along with being proud owners of a modernist Johannesburg home, they are caretakers of my parents’ bodily remains?

I now know that loss can be thoughtfully marked in ways that are far from a marble dark cemetery. Through one’s own life. As a physical memorial. The memorial might be a venture like Catinalla’s, immediate and personal. It might be a lasting public legacy like the Gantner hut.

Now I can’t help thinking of all the goodness that’s been created in the world through people dreaming up plans not to lose the legacy of important people.

The post Create a love project and cherish the legacy of important people appeared first on Annie Bolitho.

Yes, as with the 2009 ceremony the organisers got this one right. People left satisfied, heartened, and of course sad. A woman I spoke to said ‘That hit exactly the right note’.

Lessons from this ceremony

1. No one is more important than those who have lost beloved people. The ceremony needs to put them front of mind. The speakers’ role is to honour and remind. Words drawn from experience, from the heart do just this. The Governor Her Excellency the Hon. Linda Dessau AC had met with many survivors. Dr Kathy Rowe had lost her husband in the fires. Their opening words set the tone for the rest of the event.
2. The MC or celebrant knows it’s not their ceremony. MC Craig Willis was clear, straightforward and well briefed. He had a chair well to the side of the stage where he sat during the majority of the proceedings. This to me is the sign of a quality MC or celebrant at a ceremony.
3. A well balanced program with the right mix of speakers, music and reflection. The number of leaders at the commemoration was impressive. But the voice of the community from Jane Hayward, Principal of Strathewan Primary, was vital. Children came through those fires. Their participation through video footage and in person with their mentor Dave Wandon gave hope and inspiration for the future. CFA Chief Officer, Steve Warrington, brought the gravitas of being able to look back on the experience of the fires and forward based on its lessons. The Premier, Daniel Andrews and the Leader of the Opposition, Michael O’Brien, both read poems which provided food for thought.

Strathewen Bushfire memorial. Thanks to the Victorian Government for this photo.

I felt that the Didgeridoo by Gnarnayarrahe Waitairie and his collaborator made the ceremony, in the way their sounds seemed to capture a spiritual and heartfelt response from the whole country to the tragedy. Talking to a woman I’d never met as we left she agreed, saying ‘It was as if they were whispering to everyone saying “it’s going to be okay.”’

The post 3 lessons for a great ceremony (from the 10th anniversary of the Victorian bushfires) appeared first on Annie Bolitho.

by Jennifer Downs

I spent a week with Jennifer Downs in Baltimore, Maryland in 2012. I was attending ‘home funeral’ training with Final Passages. An acupuncturist, Steiner educator and political activist, Jennifer’s tagline is ‘Wake up to your wisdom, embrace your life’. I’m often inspired by her blog at Pivot Point Projects and asked her if I could share this piece about her Mom’s memorial.

Charm City Steel, the five piece band, pick up their sticks and in rhythm tap out a fetching tune on their huge steel drums.  This is the preamble to a special program to celebrate and remember my mom, who died of advanced dementia at age 87 in my home. The music lifts me as people wander in.

It is Mom’s memorial service and she asked for this. It was ten years ago out of the blue between steel drum dance tunes in Maine. She pointed at me from across the village green and said, “I want a steel band at my funeral!” No matter that she never brought up death or dying before or since. At that moment the heavens opened and she delivered her wish to me. And I said to her, to myself and my daughter Amelia, “Done.”

Done. We honoured your wishes.

I am to MC this memorial service. It is daunting and an honor, to welcome people to a venue where mom came into her own at City College High School in Baltimore when I was a teenager, the oldest of three who would soon be going to college. She would make sure we all had the chance to go by challenging herself to do something bigger, something that was important to her and that would earn money for the family. She was the head of the guidance department. What a gift financial necessity can be.

Mom had a potter’s wheel in the basement of our campus row house. It was a kick wheel which meant that she had to kick it to get it going so she could throw a pot. Now people usually have motors on their potters’ wheels. She was determined and just had to have a way to make art. She made pots, cups, dishes and even heads of all her children. She had a kiln to fire the pieces in. My mother was first an artist. When we dismantled their home of thirty five years and took apart her studio, we found stacks of drawings of us as little kids on paper that was thin and falling apart. She even drew on newspaper sometimes when nothing else was available. Mulling over Mom, I remember how she loved that potter’s wheel and can see her now leaning over it in the dank basement, balancing and centering. Now that Mom is gone, I relish the kind glances that came in the very last days and weeks of her life which is now complete. I know her more through her massive amount of art work: pottery, drawings and water color paintings,  even poetry and journal entries. I have a new view of this person who was hidden from me.

Was her life as an artist not similar to what she did as a guidance counselor? Is it too obvious a metaphor? She had to earn money to send her own kids to college so she got her Masters and was hired at a school where she helped to give those students a chance to shine. She shaped them like pots on a wheel. It takes work and is a challenge to rise to the occasion in this world. Mom had some hidden pain and self doubt. At times it ate away at her. Sometimes, it made it hard for her to be there for her own kids. But she was driven to create in whatever way she could. She was masterful at creating opportunities for high school students to learn how to be responsible and fulfilled adults by placing them in internship positions in the community.

Who is an artist? Someone who takes what is in front of her, using good tools, to make something beautiful or interesting or engaging. Someone who takes the kids that came through the door, listens to them, assesses their strengths and weaknesses and puts them into challenging situations where they have to rise to the occasion.

Moms in this world provide something to fight against and rebel from. I’ve learned as a mom myself that this is a personal challenge of the highest degree. We learn who we are and understand more over time while also parenting. Mothering is a challenge worthy of fortitude.What a task! This goes for dads too but now I am looking at “mom issues.” Isn’t this a familiar term, mom issues? We have to break away from “mom,” be our own person, after being totally dependent and gradually more independent over a number of years. It is revelation to learn that our mothers were actual people before they mothered us.

The simplicity with which mom ambled through the last months, weeks and days of her life was an inspiration to me. She was childlike in her fascination with beautiful, or even ordinary rocks, leaves, anything that caught her eye, including small children. She walked up to toddlers and almost got down to play with them, not self conscious in the least. Her face brightened and she beamed out of the depths of her dementia. It was as though the loss of cognitive function took with it any scrap of anxiety, of which she had plenty for much of her life.

For me, who had my healthy share of “mother issues” as a teenager and young adult, it was profound to be with her during this time of cognitive deterioration that people tend to assume is tragic. In fact, her blue eyes often shone in wonder at things she saw, and some glances at me and others, especially my dad, were full of uninhibited tenderness.

I sat with her on the last night, when everyone else had gone to sleep. Her breathing was fast and loud until I got up close and held her foot in one hand and her arm in the other. Then she quieted and her breathing slowed. Gradually it got slower, stopped a few times momentarily, and then just stopped. I was stunned and grateful all at once. She was so peaceful. I sat in the stillness of the middle of the night and observed her face grow more relaxed and at ease.

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The post Guest Post: Why we had a steel band at Mom’s memorial appeared first on Annie Bolitho.

I was in Gippsland recently and I stepped into a wonderful restaurant, Catinalla’s. The owner Deanna is seventh generation Australian. When she married a second generation Italian, a big part of her learning was about food. What they’d eaten at home was different. Great food but so different!

Everyone loves food

Deanna learned cooking from her mother-in-law, Catinalla. Sugos, stocks, fritattas. This experience lives on in the restaurant. Deanna qualified as a chef in 2015 to formalise her knowledge of cooking. Running beneath the outward effort has been a concern that real family grown food traditions don’t get lost.

That’s a memorial isn’t it? Her mother-in- law passed away in 2014. And in Traralgon, Deanna can keep the traditions going. When Catinalla was still alive, Deanna registered the business name and ran ideas past her, checked things with her. She found out the story behind the unique spelling of her name.

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Love project. Thanks to Squarepics.co

Intent, the will to make the vision happen

I was a guest at the public event held in 2015 at Hamer Hall to celebrate Neilma Gantner’s rich and generous life. The program was packed with admiring speakers. One was a Parks Victoria employee who had got to know here very very well in the late 60s. Neilma had approached the government about building a hut in the Alpine National Park in memory of her son Vallejo. Vallejo had died very young, and she was determined to create a fitting memorial that reflected his love of the mountains. She wanted it to be a beautiful place that would benefit all comers. What seemed an impossibility – putting an aesthetically extraordinary hut into the high country – became a reality, the MacAlister Springs Hut. The hut is deeply loved by bushwalkers. Designed by architect David McGlashan, with a copper roof, it is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register.

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Water & good campsite. Thanks to the Mountain Journal.

Buried, cremated or transformed to goodness?

My friend Uncle Fletcher Roberts, a Bundjalung elder in Lismore, NSW, once questioned me about where I planned to be when I died. He was old and rarely left Lismore, in case he died while he was away. He asked me if it bothered me that I wouldn’t be in the same place as my parents since I’d moved to Australia.

Where were they buried?

No, they were cremated.

Where are their ashes?

When I said that we’d scattered them in our garden, and that we’d sold the property, he was shocked. On reflection I think he was spot on. What might I have learned by going back to visit the place where we’d let their remains go? How would those owners react if they knew that along with being proud owners of a modernist Johannesburg home, they are caretakers of my parents’ bodily remains?

I now know that loss can be thoughtfully marked in ways that are far from a marble dark cemetery.

Through one’s own life.

As a physical memorial. The memorial might be a venture like Catinalla’s, immediate and personal. It might be a lasting public legacy like the Gantner hut.

Now I can’t help thinking of all the goodness that’s been created in the world through people dreaming up plans not to lose the legacy of important people.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

The post Love projects 1 appeared first on Annie Bolitho.

Bruns is a place people are fond of. and you see that in memorials placed at ground and eye level.

A few memorials

At the gate of the school, this reminder of ‘a friend to our school’.

On the breakwater. Who wouldn’t want to be remembered like this?

Tom’s special place.

And crossing on the way to the health food shop. A garden ‘Gillian’s Island’. Perhaps Gillian is contemporary, perhaps she’s passed on?

What’s your view? Do memorials enhance the public space or not? If you think they do, what makes them a worthwhile element in your view?

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