I decided to get a memorial tattoo symbolic of what I write about here. My oldest daughter drew me a picture for Father’s Day along with a heartfelt letter. It was the perfect symbolism for me to use to base a tattoo from. I knew if I was going to do this I would have to find an artist that could do a fantastic job and before I would be willing to move forward.

The problem was I didn’t have any tattoos or know of any artist. Fortunately my wife got a memorial tattoo (also her first) based off of Sarah’s first rose painting. When I saw what Kim Chu accomplished with my wife’s tattoo I immediately knew she had the talent and artistic interpretation to do what I wanted.

Below is what she accomplished in a single 3 hour session and it is EXACTLY what I wanted. Something interesting is the angle I see it from a lot of times when I look at it, the bird looks like it is looking up at me (last image). It just so happens that the curve of my calf can hide the white part of the top of the eye giving that illusion.

The quote on the drawing is from Hallowed Ground by Thomas Campbell.

This is really a horrible example as the enlarge/crop made it grainy but this is generally the angle that makes me feel that the cardinal is looking at me.