It’s been an extremely sad few weeks in my friendship group. Sadly, we lost one of our closest friends. He was the glue that kept us together. Always so fun and full of life, his death is an absolute tragedy. I just wish he opened up more and spoke about how he was feeling. I wish I was there for him more so I could stop him from doing what he did. There’s not been a week in the last twenty-five years where me and my friend haven’t seen each other. Every milestone in our lives has been celebrated together. Our first rock concert, our first girlfriends, our first cars. We went through those moments together. We laughed together and cried together. Now I feel like my main support is gone. My mum cried for me when I broke the news about my friend passing away. She knew how close we were. I never had any siblings or many family members. He was that sibling I never had.
It’s important his memory lives on and my biggest fear is that people will forget about him. I see it in my duty to keep the memory of him alive. Next week I’ll be visiting a Brisbane based realism tattoo artist to talk about a commemorative design. I’d like to get a portrait done of my friend but I’m still yet to find a photo that is suitable. Every photo I have of him is him being silly or pulling a funny face. While that behaviour does capture his personality, I worry that it might be a bit hard for a tattoo artist to get it right.
I searched long and hard for a realism tattooist. Brisbane seems to have quite an extensive network of tattoo artists. This was particularly helpful as it meant I was able to sift through different artists and only pick the best. My friend would always laugh at me for not having any tattoos. I always said that I never felt there was a reason to have any, until now.