My father was the kind of man who handled problems head-on. Tough as nails, he once used a hand drill to deal with an ingrown toenail, a testament to his no-nonsense approach to life. Growing up, my brother and I witnessed his machismo firsthand, whether it was breaking up fights at baseball games or maintaining order during his time as a Detroit cop. Before stepping into action, he’d always hand his watch to my brother, Mike – a familiar prelude to his intervention.
But his toughness wasn’t just physical; it extended to dealing with personal regrets. One vivid example was how he chose to remove a large Tombstone Tattoo from his forearm. Instead of a laser or professional removal, he opted for coarse grit sandpaper, spending countless hours scrubbing away the ink while watching TV. All that remains today is a faint, ghostly outline of a cross, a shadow of the bold tattoo that once was.
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The disappearance of that tattoo always struck me as a significant loss. It was a tangible link to my paternal grandmother, Tekla Matlock Pyzik, a Polish immigrant and mother of nine who passed away from heart disease at just 43, on my father’s 16th birthday. This loss profoundly impacted him, leading him to enlist in the Navy shortly after. He served in the Pacific during World War II on the USS William C. Miller, earning seven battle stars for his service against Japan.
The tombstone tattoo was a spontaneous decision, inked during shore leave in Honolulu sometime between late 1943 and early 1944, before his deployment to the Philippines and Iwo Jima. It was a moment caught between intense combat operations, a fleeting pause before facing further danger.
He and three navy buddies ventured into a tattoo parlor together. One emerged with a notoriously bad naked lady tattoo, later transformed into an American eagle. Another got a rose, which I later learned can symbolize a life cut short – a poignant choice given their wartime circumstances. Mortality must have been weighing heavily on their minds.
My father chose a tombstone. It wasn’t just any tombstone; it was a large, cross-shaped marker etched with the word “Mother,” adorned with pink and red flowers at its base. He confessed later that regret set in quickly. The stark display of grief, a constant reminder etched onto his skin, became too overwhelming. For years afterward, he favored long sleeves to conceal it, except on the golf course where perhaps the open air and freedom offered some solace.
My grandmother Tekla rests in Holy Cross Cemetery in Detroit. Ironically, the tombstone on my father’s arm was more elaborate than the simple marker at her actual grave. Her legacy for her 31 grandchildren is fragmented – a handful of faded photographs, her wedding ring, and the stories carried by her surviving children, my dad and his sisters Bernice and Caroline.
He recounts tales of his Depression-era Detroit childhood, stories that echo a gritty, urban Huck Finn narrative. He speaks of the joy of swimming in the Rouge River near the Ford plant and playing street ball, painting a picture of youthful resilience amidst hardship.
The reality was starkly different. His family lived on welfare, moving 18 times in 18 years. There were times when social services had no housing for them, leading to periods living in an abandoned store on Vernor Highway. His father, Grandpa Frank, struggled with alcoholism, and my grandmother navigated survival however she could, sometimes using rent money for essential food. She was, by all accounts, a survivor and a fighter, and in that context, my father’s wartime tombstone tattoo becomes a powerful tribute to her enduring spirit.
Tattoos in my family today tell a different story. The women often opt for delicate designs like dragonflies or musical notes. One male cousin uses his skin as a canvas to chronicle his passions for cars and food, sporting a tattoo that reads “Amo Crustum,” supposedly Latin for “I love pie,” alongside a vintage hotrod. This same cousin also bears a skeletal Statue of Liberty tattoo, explaining it simply as: “My country is dead.”
Perhaps this is a postmodern take on the tombstone tattoo – ironic, detached, and reflective of a different kind of grief. Yet, nothing quite captures the raw emotion and poignant simplicity of a faded “Mother” tombstone tattoo, a lasting, albeit removed, memorial etched in skin and memory.
