BayWidow is a 34-year-old woman from the East Coast of Canada. As her chosen name mentions, she is a widow. BayWidow says that when she was 31, she “went to work that morning as a wife and mom, and came home to find out [she] wasn’t a wife anymore. [Her] daughter (3 at the time) found [her husband] in [their] bedroom. He had a massive sudden heart attack and died instantly before we got home.” BayWidow shares that she went through a long period of feeling nothing after his death. She was on medication and functioning on autopilot to “try and be a parent while barely able to take care of [her]self.”
What started as a way to feel anything, even through physical pain, “became more about wearing [her] story.” As an artist and art teacher, being able to see what she was feeling was very important to her. She came up with the concept of her tattoo but says the design credit goes to Laura Casey of Lady Lo’s Tattoos in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
BayWidow’s tattoo is on her upper left arm to represent her marriage hand and to carry that part of her former life with her wherever she goes. It contains a myriad of plants that are recognizable and representative of her home in rural East Coast Newfoundland. Because of this, others from Newfoundland can relate to her without knowing her story, which she likes. BayWidow says it contains wild roses, lupine, forget-me-nots, blueberries, and others. She shares: “We spent a lot of our early relationship living on his parents’ farm where he grew up. The cabbage moth represents that, and also references our daughter’s phrase ‘daddy butterfly’ every time one flies by. She swears it’s daddy. And wild strawberries; when we spread his ashes in his favourite place (on the farm), the hill was covered in small wild strawberries. I may have stopped wearing my wedding bands, but that chapter of my life – that life that disappeared – will always be with me.”
When talking about the meaning of her tattoo, BayWidow says it represents “survival and, at the same time, growth, grief, and closure.” She also says it is a “tribute of sorts to a life lived, a lost life, love, and self. It represents where [she has] come from, who [she] was, and even more, who [she is] now.” With much help, she says she has “grown leaps and bounds in the past two years.” She has “learned to be sad and happy every day at the same time. To carry sorrow wherever [she] go[es] while still feeling some joy.” She has been able to find “beauty from so much pain.”
STORIES FROM THE SKIN 