Ink Therapy
Some days are just heavy. Why is everything so heavy? Chester Bennington might have been able to show us before he couldn’t carry it anymore.
Obviously, we’ve had quite a few of those days lately, and we’re bound to have many more. When you are navigating the kind of profound loss that fundamentally rewrites your reality, there are days when the words fail, the administrative fights feel distant, and the only thing that makes sense is something physical.
When I asked Lisa what she wanted me to write about this week, she didn't hesitate: That new tattoo coming soon.
She’s getting a new piece, which got me thinking about the map of ink our family has been building over the last year. Tattoos aren't just art for us; they are timestamps. They are physical manifestations of the things we refuse to let fade.
The Florida Run: Outlaw Grief
My first tattoo—and Jolie’s and Lisa’s first—was a memorial piece for Julian. But because we live in South Carolina, we couldn't just go down the street to get it done for all of us. No, SC is a state with old laws perpetuated by the old guard.
This was my first ink, right near my heart.
Yes, I know it’s kinda overdone. That’s why it’s a Zelda heart, and it’s half full. I guess it could be half empty, but I hope to have it filled in a little as we get more hope for positive change.
South Carolina is home to some incredibly archaic, backwards laws. One of them is the absolute prohibition of tattooing anyone under 18, even with parental consent. Let that sink in. The state has no problem putting a grieving teenager through the wringer of a broken school system; she is allowed to work and can be held accountable as an adult in many legal situations, but a father cannot legally give his daughter permission to carry a permanent memorial of her brother on her own skin.
So, we treated it like any other broken system: we engineered a workaround. We crossed state lines into Florida. It felt fitting, in a way. We had to leave our home state to find a place that would allow us to process the way we needed to.
The Canvas Expands: Inkcarceration and the Oddity
Once the seal was broken, the ink became a regular part of our processing. It’s the reason I was able to talk Lisa into going to Inkcarceration in Ohio—a festival literally built around the intersection of heavy music and tattoo culture. The loud music and the hum of the needles serve a similar purpose: they drown out the static. Not to mention the backdrop of the Ohio State Reformatory—one of the most interesting and terrible buildings in our collective dark history.
For me, I started working on my sleeve; mapping out the chaotic, beautiful, and devastating elements of the last couple of years. It includes a bit of an oddity tied to the band Nothing More—a symbol of the music that has been a lifeline for us when the administration in our town offered nothing but silence.
I started with a design made by a friend: the “Speak Up For Julian” megaphone with a “988” on my wrist. After being invited on stage to share Julian’s story at a Disturbed show, I started adding bands that have done something for the movement. Currently, I have Marytree, Disturbed, Nothing More, Daughtry, Alice Cooper, and Until I Wake. Hopefully, I’ll be able to add some more soon, but that’s another story.
Lisa’s Ledger
But Lisa’s canvas is where the story of this family is most explicitly written. She didn't start with something abstract; she started with the core.
Her first piece was "Julieta," a direct, permanent tribute to him. It was her special pet name for Julian, and he would only be okay with her calling him that. I’ll never get over how special that is.
Then came the signature. We had a piece of pottery Julian had made, with his name signed on the bottom. Lisa had that exact signature, with all its specific loops and imperfections, tattooed on her. It is a literal piece of his handwriting, frozen in time, carried with her everywhere she goes. The school district might lose emails and fail to hit 'record' at town halls, but they can never erase that signature.
And then there is the piece for Jolie. It is an image of a book being slammed shut, accompanied by the words, "all done." If you know Jolie, you know exactly what that means. It’s definitive. It’s the finality of closing a chapter you are absolutely finished with. It captures her spirit perfectly. It doesn’t matter that the phrase originated before Julian was born; it’s just so quintessentially Jolie.
The Warning Guide
Which brings us to the next piece Lisa is getting. This one is entirely for her, and it taps into the horror genre that we both use to navigate the darkness of the real world. She is getting Victor Pascow from Pet Sematary.
If you know the story, Pascow is the tragic, terrifying specter who crosses the boundary of death to try and warn a grieving father. He is the physical embodiment of the phrase, "Sometimes, dead is better." He is a guide from the other side trying to prevent a tragedy born from the desperation of loss. It’s exceptionally sad that this story was one we greatly enjoyed for its uncomfortable themes, and now it carries an entirely different connotation.
There is a whole lot of story behind why Lisa chose Pascow, and maybe we’ll share the depths of it one day. But for now, just know that when your world has been shattered, sometimes you don't want a delicate butterfly or an inspirational quote. Sometimes, you need the ghost with the head wound to remind you of the boundaries of life and death, and to honor the terrifying reality of what you've survived.
Victor Pascow
A character in a book, and yet so much more.
When the internal pain gets to be too much, sometimes the only way to balance the equation is to match it with external, physical pain. You sit in the chair. You feel the needle. You bleed a little. And when you stand up, the grief hasn't gone away, but it has a shape. It has a boundary.
All done!
