The Honu and the Hibiscus

In less than 36 hours I will be on the plane back to the mainland.  This trip to Hawaii has been amazing and healing, full of memories and love and tears.  I have been accompanied by a sister widow who did not know Tom, as I did not know her husband.  What we have is common is vast, we have the experience of losing out husband to horrific diseases and then building a new life.  Well, truth be told, I haven't built a new life, but I am going through the grieving process and digging the foundation for that new life.

On the Big Island I released Tom's ashes in the places that he loved.  Tonight I will release more of him here on Maui, a place he had never visited.  I will release him at the spot where my sister widow's husband was also released--they can float together in the big beautiful ocean they both so loved.  There is only one more spot that I am planning on spreading his ashes, and that is on the ridge behind our house.  I will do that with his bestie when he is able to travel up north to take Tom's favorite gig kit into his care.  There may be other places in the future but I will have fulfilled Tom's wishes I believe.

Last night I finally got a memorial tattoo for Tom.  I had been contemplating what it should be for  a long time and nothing felt right at all.  When I arrived last week, my sister widow had said she wanted to get ink to represent her home of Hawaii.  At that moment a picture of a pink-red-orange hibiscus popped into my head.  When Tom and I first lived together we had a beautiful hibiscus tree of the same color in a container on our deck.  I loved that tree!  I've researched the meaning of hibiscus tattoos and the symbology is varied.  Most often it represents love, beauty and fragility, and the passing of a loved one.  For me it represents the beauty of the Islands and the deep love I have for Tom. 

As I thought more about the flower, the image of the honu (turtle) also came to mind.  We loved turtles.  I would stalk them with my camera.  They are such majestic creatures.  The hotel that we often stayed at raises baby turtles in the atrium and then sets them free into the ocean on July 4th.  Tom often used "honu" as a screen name.  In Hawaiian culture, the honu symbolizes immortality, strength, security and stability, endurance, perseverance, guidance, and faithfulness.  These are all qualities that I associate with Tom.  He also moved as slowly as a sea turtle on land when it came to making major decision, liking marrying me.  But once he made a decision, he was all in.  It was comical that we always moved at different speeds.  I was always much faster to get to a conclusion than he was, but we always made the right decisions together.

The final part of the image is "XII", the roman numeral of the number 12.  Twelve was Tom's lucky number.  This was the one thing I always knew I wanted to include.  12 was the number on his uniforms growing up.  His clean date is 12-12.  XII can also mean 10 times 2, which equals 20, the number of years we were married.

I love this tattoo.  It symbolizes to me the very things we loved most.  It is located over my heart, where I will forever carry him.  During the tattoo process I could hear Tom in my head saying "Damn, she's on my back again."  I can see the look on his face and the twinkle in his eye, with his lips pursed and a tilt of his head, with a slight eye roll.  And then I heard him say, "I will carry you on my back forever, you are never alone and you have all of my strength.  We will still swim the seas together and bask in the sun and the waves.  Come back to this place that we love and a piece of heart will be waiting for you."

Aloha my love.  We will come back here again.  Until then, mahalo.