this is long and very hard to type, but I remember it so well. please bear with me........
I'm an artist in a medium sized town, but it's one of those places that is more suited toward locals, so we get a lot of the same folks coming around for new ink or touch ups. I don't own the shop or anything, but it's a nice place and could be considered a local hangout for some of my buddies. Anyways, my point is that new customers were a little more rare in comparison to other shops around. We're located on one of the busier streets in town, near some locally owned shops and a gas station.
So when this kid, who didn't look older than 14, walks into the place with a wad of bills and big brown eyes, it was kind of odd. I mean, such a young kid coming in without an adult. Plus she dressed weird. Not like it's super warm where I am in the fall, but it's definitely not cold enough to be wearing a winter hat and heavy jacket. I'm one of two of the guys working that day, and my buddy is currently taking a smoke outside so I'm obligated to greet the girl. The kid asks if they could get a tattoo today, to which I explain to them that one would usually have to make an appointment, but we could do a consultation. Of course, this is the part where I ask her age. Don't get me wrong, we're a small town and sometimes will overlook 17 year olds getting ink, but other than that we are quite stingy about getting parents' permission. The girl says that her mom was working, but looks at me with those brown eyes again and asks if there's any way she could get her tattoo today. Me, being a hungover asshole who is doing his best to seem friendlier than he wants to be, says she can come back with her mom some other time. The girl nods and doesn't put up a fight before she leaves the shop.
Sometime within the next two weeks she comes in again several times when I am working. She's back with that winter hat and heavy jacket. She brings in a note at first with her mom's signature and a full sized piece of paper rolled into a scroll (or roll, w/e) in her other hand. I tell her that we need her mom here, and that we can't just take a signature on any piece of paper - I wasn't breaking the rules for a kid who obviously looked so young. So the girl nods again and leaves my shop.
She comes back a few days later, and this time i notice something's different about her. I probably missed it the last time she was in because I was tattooing someone. Those brown eyes are a bit more tired and worn out. She's exhausted and pale... pasty almost. She asks me again for a tattoo, giving me a note that specifically says that she is allowed to get a tattoo. The girl's looking at me with those brown eyes again, and being the asshole i am, i still refuse and ask her to come back. The girl leaves that rolled up piece of paper with me this time. I don't think much of it as I put it on my desk where I'm working on a stencil.
She comes in again, maybe a week later, and I'm in the back on lunch break. I can see her, and she doesn't see me, so I continue to eat my sandwich and hope that my buddy who's working with me will handle it. After a good 10 minutes of her sitting in the front of the shop, I walk up to her. This time she's definitely looking like a zombie. Her coat's off, and I can see how frail she is... much too frail for a girl her age. She looks up at me with her brown eyes and asks in a quiet voice if I looked at her design. It's like a month since she first came in, and she's a completely different girl, descriptively speaking. I try to register what the hell she's talking about before I remember the scrolled up paper on my desk, which isn't far. I tell her I haven't looked at it yet, but i decide to amuse her and go grab the paper from my desk since I have nothing better to do.
I unroll it, and it's just some words on top of each other "LIVE. LAUGH. LOVE." which kind of confuses me, because usually when someone requests their own design and brings me a piece of paper for it, it's not just a few stupid words put so simply on top of each other. I ask her why she wants this tattooed on her so bad, and she starts telling me...
Apparently she had been coming from the hospital. It was a few blocks away, not exactly an easy walk due to the heavy traffic and slight hill on the way back. She said she was diagnosed with cancer... Leukemia, I'm pretty sure. She wasn't hospitalized but every time she had chemo and other treatments, she would walk to the shop beforehand, because she told her mom that the appointments were three hours earlier than they really were. Oh yeah, apparently her mom wasn't really in the picture except for getting her from point A to point B. Her dad was her primary caretaker (they were separated), but couldn't drive her during the day so she had to be with her mom, who in my opinion didn't seem like a very good mom if she didn't know her own daughter's appointments.
It explained why she was so lethargic and sickly looking every time she came into the shop. It also explained why she wore that big coat and winter hat. When her big brown eyes looked at me, and I knew she was gonna ask for a tat again, I felt my heart crack because i wanted to say yes so, so bad. One of my main concerns was that she was doing chemo and I didn't want to add ink on her body because it could harm her. So after doing some quick research, I told her that four to six months after her last treatment i would give her that tattoo free of charge. She smiled at me and even hugged me before she left. But there was a lot of happiness in those brown eyes.
I never was able to give her that tattoo. She came in four or five times after I made her that promise, sitting around the shop and asking questions. I am an abrasive person, but this girl was different and I had no issues with all the little questions she would ask me in the hour or so she spent at the shop before each of her treatments. I really warmed up to her, ate lunch with her once, and even got her to help me prep my area a few times before I would ink up a customer. Then she stopped coming, and something in my world sort of stopped. I wasn't the kind of person to give a shit, but I did give a shit about this kid. I worried about her, and the worst part was that I had no way of knowing if she was dead or not. I waited four months... then six months.... a year.... and then two years past by and there was no visits from that brown eyed girl.
So I hung that paper up on my wall above my desk. The three words she wrote a bit off center on the full sized piece of printer paper. I got a cheap frame and framed it even so it wouldn't get damaged. LIVE. LAUGH. LOVE. It kind of reminds me throughout the day of the important things. I still wish someday I'll see those brown eyes again.