Tattoo

Maybe twenty or thirty years will go by and suddenly Sarah will pop up one day to visit, like my friend Inga did. I’ll run into her downtown, or at some sort of event, and we’ll hug and I’ll say “You look fantastic, I love what you are doing now with your hair.” We’ll promise to get together, but of course we won’t, because we just won’t have that kind of bond anymore.

It’s so painful to think of her somewhere, anywhere, without me. But I really am doing better at creating space between us. I thought about the possibility of going through her clothes this morning when I saw on our neighborhood listserv that a charity needs clothes donations for school age kids. I even gave some thought lately to possibly doing something different with her room eventually, maybe making a den or guest room or whatever.

When Max and I were walking on the Boardwalk at the shore, I saw a woman with a full tattoo sleeve and it brought back a memory that made me smile. Sarah loved when she was a toddler for us to buy her a little toy from the gum and candy machines (since she didn’t chew gum) for fifty cents or so. You know, the ones at the entrance to the grocery store where you put a coin in the flat slot and turn the metal handle and the toy comes out the chute in a kind of plastic bubble. Once, the toy she got was a fake tattoo sleeve that was kid-sized, all brightly colored and made of nylon or some other synthetic fabric. She for some reason loved this and was obsessed with it. She wore it all day every day and slept with it on at night for a couple of months. When we first went to doctors’ appointments, I’d explain “That’s a fake tattoo sleeve, she likes wearing it for some reason.” But after a while I just stopped explaining. If they had an issue with a little kid wearing a tattoo sleeve, that was their problem.

I don’t remember what became of the tattoo sleeve. Maybe she lost interest, maybe it fell off one night and she had just gotten whatever kicks she was getting out of it and moved on. Kids have their little obsessions. Personally, I never wanted a tattoo. I guess I’m not of that generation, and there’s the whole Jewish thing with not marking your body. But perhaps Sarah, wherever she is, has gotten herself a tattoo, or even a full sleeve. The little rebel.