"i heart mom" tattoos

back in november was the five year anniversary of my mom's passing. anniversary? is that the right word? it doesn't feel very right. either way, it's been five years. saige and i had been discussing the idea of getting commemorative tattoos for a while, but when we first talked about it i was pregnant with heath and then... time makes fool of us all. then the anniversary of her death came and she often sits at the front of my mind during the holidays anyways. so with renewed motivation, we went and got tattoos! 

my mom was crazy creative. artistically, there is not much she couldn't do. she made jewelry, and clothes, and did stage makeup, and acted, and painted, and photographed and was honestly one of the slowest moving individuals i had ever met because she was just always taking every single thing in. and then stopping to take a picture of it. i remember one time my mom was like 7 months pregnant with saige and we were at this craft fair that had a petting zoo with llamas. and one of the llamas was standing up, but had it's head reasting on the ground (it was kind of weird) and my mom laid down on the gross straw covered floor to take a picture of the llama's face. with her giant prego belly! and a bunch of people having to step over and maneuver around her. BUT later she entered that llama face photo in a photography contest and won... so she said it was totally worth it. 

my mom always signed the bottom of her artwork "iko". the i was from isabel and the ko was from kolpack. she added the o because she said that without it her initials were "ik" and that wasn't very flattering. she would also date her work with just the year. i found a photo she had signed and traced the initials onto paper and also traced the numbers of saige and my birth years off of some paperwork she had filled out. we got the tattoos on our heel... since that is the equivalent to the "bottom" of a piece of art. 

i know my mom would love the tattoos. i wish she could see them. i wish we had thought to do them while she was still here. and i wish every day that she could meet beckett and heath. and that she could watch saige walk down the aisle one day. and be here in a few weeks to celebrate mother's day. but she can't. when i look at my tattoo though it makes me feel like she is here... a little bit. so, that's nice.