The Last Tattoo

It’s a fantastic thing to have found love once in your lifetime, but twice is a gift from the heavens.

Delores laid on her bed in the small room of her retirement apartment. The tubing in her nose was blowing a gentle flow of oxygen to keep her breathing easy and comfortable. At least that’s what she heard the nurse tell her granddaughter.

She turned to look out the window, and the thicket of berry bushes caught her eyes. She could hear the faint whirl of the fan on the other side of the room that released a soft but gentle breeze. The breeze blew the stray hairs across her face, and Delores smiled. She remembered the first time Grayson tucked stray hairs behind her ears, caressed her face lightly, and held her chin as he kissed her softly and deeply.

Delores’ first husband had kissed her, but something powerful stirred in her when Grayson planted his lips on hers. The tenderness, passion, and love permeated through her, unlike any feeling she had ever felt before. Delores had found Grayson later in life, and she married him despite the side glances and eye rolls. Who marries in their sixties?

Grayson was Delores’ second husband–her soulmate. The man she loved deeply and unconditionally. That earth-shattering kind of love. Delores had loved her first husband with all her heart, yet there was something in the love she shared with Grayson that was different and special. It was as though their souls had been searching for one another, and when they finally met, everything clicked. Every night right before bed, as Delores laid reading her book, Grayson would run his fingers lightly across her back. He would trace little words of love with his fingertips. Words that spelled I love you, and deeply yours were amongst some of her favorite imaginary fingertip-inked phrases. One day as Delores was shopping, she got the bright idea to tattoo lines of poetry on her body for Grayson to discover, explore and trace with his fingertip.

What started as a whim turned into tattoos in the most intimate places. Delores’ first tattoo was on her inner thigh, which led to a phrase on her shoulder and so on.

“Grandma, it’s time for your shower.” Emma mentioned on her way to the bathroom.

Delores turned and nodded a slight nod of agreement and sat up on the edge of her bed. The cancer had spread throughout her body, attacking every cell, and the pain of the slight movement Delores made in sitting up grabbed hold of her, and she moaned and winced in pain.

Emma noticed and ran over to her grandmother’s side.

“Oh grandma, let me help you.” Emma whispered.

Emma gently lifted Delores onto the shower seat that sat in the corner of her room and wheeled her into the shower. It was the first time that Delores could not shower herself, and she felt awkward asking her granddaughter to help. As Emma started to unbutton her grandmother’s nightgown, she saw the tattoos laid like ink stains on a fine canvas across her grandmother’s back.

“Grandma, you have tattoos! So many tattoos!” Emma said excitedly.

Delores smiled. “Yes, darling, I do.”

“Now I know why you gave me all those tips when I told you I wanted my first tattoo.”

Delores smiled and touched the tattoo on her wrist. Forever and a day.

“Will you tell me the story of how you managed to get all these fantastic words tattooed across your body, grandma?” Emma asked.

“Where shall I begin?” Delores started. “Your second Grandfather, Grayson Ward, was a loving man. He treated me like no man had ever treated me. I was the love of his life, which showed in all the little things he did for me. I always told him that I could take care of myself, that I was an independent woman, and I didn’t need any man taking care of me.” Delores laughed. “He’d grunt, tell me he knew that, and continue to leave me little surprises around the house–candy bars he knew I liked. When I worked late, I would often come home to dinner on the stove and Grayson asleep on the sofa, a book laying across his chest. His most favorite display of affection happened late on at night. Now it’s not what you think, so don’t go wrinkling your face, although that was good too. Grayson loved to trace words of love across my body with his fingertip. It was as though his finger was a pen. I loved him perhaps more than he loved me.”

“Grandma, that is so sweet.”

“Mmm, it was. Any case, I decided one day I would tattoo words for him to discover in those most intimate of moments.”

Emma poured some shampoo into her hands and began to lather it in her grandmother’s hair. As Emma washed her grandmother, she watched her grandmother smile at every place the sponge touched that her Grandfather Grayson may have once explored with his fingertip. Emma gently poured water over her grandmother’s back and watched as the soap suds cascaded down her grandmother’s back into the pool of water below. Emma’s eyes followed each letter, each loving word from her grandmother’s shoulder blade down to the small of her back. Just when Emma thought the tattoos had ended, she discovered a new one. Emma could not get over the stirring of love that she felt with each inked emotion. Emma had hoped to find this level of love with someone someday.

As Emma dressed her grandmother in a clean nightgown and massaged lotion on her dry and wrinkled body, she felt closer to her grandmother than she had ever felt before. They had always had a special bond, but somehow, today, that bond was even more special.

“Grandma, does mom know? About the tattoos, I mean.”

“No dear, you are the only one outside of Grayson to have seen these.”

“Thank you for sharing that piece of yourself with me.”

Delores smiled and gently laid back down on her bed.

“Sweetheart, can you get me my pain medicine; I think that shower has tired me out.”

Delores looked outside the window once more. The moon was full and peeking with promise. Not the promises yet to come but the promises of a life well-lived. Love achieved and purpose fulfilled. Delores closed her eyes, and she could feel the light touch of Grayson’s fingertip on her collarbone. The one place that he said he wanted her last tattoo to go.

Emma came out of the bathroom and looked at her grandmother peacefully lying in her bed. There was a glow shining across her face.

How peaceful, Emma thought.

What Emma didn’t know was that her grandmother had taken her final breath moments before. As Emma bent down to tuck her grandmother’s hair behind her ears, she saw the tiny inscription illuminated by the faint glow of green light.

My fingertip traces love across your body once more. See you soon, my love.