When I was five years old I met my best friend in primary school. He was the most outgoing, fun and light-hearted kind of guy. Sadly, he didn’t have the best family life. He was constantly relocating between foster care as his parents could not look after him. We lost contact for a few years until he moved back to my school and we became the best of friends again. Our relationship over the last twenty-six years evolved from a friendship to becoming like brothers. Even my family welcomed him into our family. I remember it was his tenth birthday and he had no one to throw a party for him, so my mum decided to host his birthday party. We’ve been through absolutely everything together as we’ve grown up. We would regularly joke about what our lives would be like when we hit our sixties. Sadly, those days will now never come. My best friend, unfortunately, passed away a month and a half ago.
My biggest fear is that one day he will become a forgotten and faded memory. I want him to be with me forever so I’m looking into getting a portrait of him done by a realism tattoo artist. I have a few photos of him in the last few years that I think really capture his personality and I am hoping to get the artwork placed on my forearm with the dates of his birthday and passing underneath. I keep sharing photos of him on social media each week because it makes me feel as if I still have that interaction with him online. No one understands the feeling of suddenly losing someone with who you interact on a daily basis unless you’ve been through it.
There’s a Brisbane based tattooist near me who does amazing portraiture and really captures the person in their drawings. I have a consultation with them tomorrow to get this artwork done. I feel a rush of mixed emotions from excited, to emotional, to scared. I know it’ll be fine, but it’s hard coming to terms.