If you watch me you probably know I lost my best friend to cancer last week on October 17th. He fought hard, tried anything they could offer him, but his life wasted away before my eyes... He was a big man, strong as an ox, versed in many different kinds of fighting, and had sleeves on both arms but the one that stood out most to me was his koi. Every time I thought of him that's what would pop in to my head.

Before he passed away, when he could still understand words people said hours before the toxins from his failed liver clouded his brain I told him... "I'm going to get a tattoo of a koi just for you to remember you by" and I gave him a peck on the cheek. He understood, he knew, it was a promise to me. I searched everywhere I could for a good looking koi tattoo because I wanted this sooner rather than later. Eventually I broke down, there are nothing good to fully live up to what I wanted.

I ended up messaging an artist and got turned down then thought about my friend mingchee and realized what a dummy I was. I knew she'd do it for me, so I asked and said something simple... A koi with a remembrance ribbon in lavender to symbolize his death as well as the death of my grandmother* who passed away as I was in high school from a different kind of cancer.

Words cannot express the gratitude, and the love, and all sorts of other emotions I simply cannot give words to. Ming made this for me which I will get tattooed on my right calf on Saturday (long as a scratch from my dog heals in time) and I can't wait... I wanted something to remember both my friend and my grandmother by. This is beyond fitting.

Thank you, Ming.



*My grandmother's cancer was brought on by asbestos, which she breathed in through doing laundry for my grandfather. When my grandfather found out that is why she got it, not through smoking which he assumed, he passed quickly after learning and was a broken man doing so... He would not have found out had it not been for a lawyer looking to make a quick buck. The settlement check he received was nothing to the pain he felt, the guilt.. He died with a broken heart.