Tattoo - Welcome to the Heart of Europe

  

“Sweet child in time, you’ll see the line, the line that’s drawn between good and bad,” you sang and played to me on the bass guitar when we were young. The song tells of a young person searching for his place in a world full of good and bad decisions. We listened to music – you had a great record collection –, played carom billiard, or went to a pub, where you tortured a computer game. We called you “Khrushchev.” Our birthdays were just one day apart. After those school days, we lost track of each other.

 

Seeing you again thirty years later left a lasting impression on me (cf. Be Strong, 2023, pp. 91–92). After hearing at a high school reunion that you were not doing well at all, I tracked you down at your former “Black Lemon” tattoo studio in Vienna. You could no longer work as a tattooer after suffering a heart attack and a stroke. Your friends and taking care of your two kittens Ziggy and Hilda gave you something to hold on to and purpose. As did your trust in the assistance of the Archangel Michael, and visiting St. John’s Chapel of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The word “Logos” from the Gospel of John followed you wherever you went. It was tattooed on the back of your hand and on your lower leg.

 

You told me that you had “left nothing out,” when you were in a punk band, you spoke of your cooking skills, of a pilgrimage church you visited in Poland, and the mourning for your beloved grandmother. You were there at my wife’s funeral and at my ordination as a deacon. Lately, you had moved to the countryside. In January 2023, you had to have one leg amputated – just like both your parents before. During subsequent surgery in June, you sadly passed away in hospital. Finally, I could arrange for you to be buried in the grave of your grandparents and parents in your hometown.

“There is a time to live and a time to die,” says the Book of Kohelet. A time to laugh and a time to mourn (Ecc 3:1–4). Today we may be very sad, and yet we gratefully remember all the happy days we shared with each other. Like when you tattooed a cross on the neck of a dear friend. We put a picture of that very cross on your death notice. The memory of you is tattooed in our minds. That’s our inner tattoo. “In my father’s house are many rooms,” Jesus told us (John 14:2). We know that you are in a better place now.