Sainthood in Passing

Saints, Sinners, and the Bullshit in Between

I’m too old to go handing out halos to assholes just because they died. Harsh, I know, but as I venture into the latter half of my 40’s the funerals are starting to come faster and people I wouldn’t have spent much time with in life are suddenly getting the sainthood treatment in death.

I have a tattoo on my back that turns people’s heads. I gave an artist two photos and a feeling and he said “trust me”. Then I spent all summer driving 4 hours round trip, visiting him every other weekend, and laying 7-8 hours on his table while he turned that little bit of input into what I consider the best art I could ever wear. My trust was very well placed. The finished piece took a total of 38 hours plus a few touch ups after the healing. In the tattoo world that’s a very long time.

I found out today that the artist passed quietly over the weekend. I saw streams of people posting their laments with flowery words and gut-wrenching tales of his place in their lives, and it made me wonder if I knew the same man they did.

When you go through a tattoo the scale of the one I wear, you forge a bond with your artist. You spend hour after hour distracting yourself from the mild discomfort that slowly wears you down by getting to know each other and talking about literally anything under the sun that is not the needle in your skin. The more I got to know my artist, the more I realized that if it weren’t for his talent, we would never be friends. He was an asshole.

I run into this a lot these days. The loss of people I know brings out all the compliments and none of the criticism. Everyone is in such a hurry to honor the fallen they gloss over any wrong the person ever did or any flaw they ever had, and I think it’s bullshit. Absolute bullshit.

You see... it’s ok to be an asshole and still add value in this world. And it’s ok to mourn the passing of an imperfect person. You don’t need MY permission to do these things, but maybe it helps. Maybe YOU are an imperfect person too, and you need to know you’re still worth remembering. Loving.

My father in law got this same treatment. The man who reminded me regularly that my name wasn’t on this property, and that I was a temporary fixture in his son’s life. The man who also taught my children how to turn a wrench or participate in the local community. The man who ostracized my stepdaughter because he thought she “might be one of those gays”. The man who literally dug trenches for our septic system. To say he was complex would be an understatement of epic proportions, but to say he was a saint would swing that pendulum to the absolute other end.

He’s been gone for 8 years now, and in our one-square-mile town they have a day marked in his honor. The sweet stalwart figure at the grocery store checkout still asks about his widow with sympathetic eyes when that widow ran off with a man half his age less than a month after dad’s passing. The men at the hardware store question my purchases because “your pap-in-law woulda got this one”. I can still get out of a traffic ticket when I drop my father-in-law’s name… most days. Sainthood in passing. Some legacy.

It’s funny how, as the years stack up, you start hearing more about “legacy” like it’s some grand, golden trophy we’re all supposed to leave behind. Suddenly, it’s not enough to just live your life and be yourself—you’re supposed to be carving out some shining narrative that people will sing about when you’re gone. But here’s the kicker: nobody actually lives up to the legacy we like to build around them after they’re dead. We all put our pants on one leg at a time, and let’s be honest—sometimes those pants don’t even fit right.

And yet, there’s this nagging voice that tells us we need to be more, do more, leave behind some spotless, saintly memory that others can admire. Like anyone’s going to remember us for the way we burned dinner or couldn’t keep a houseplant alive to save our life. No, they want the highlights reel, the neatly edited “best of” version of us that we’re supposed to package up and pass along to posterity. But that’s just a fairytale, isn’t it? We’re complex, we’re flawed, we screw up, and sometimes we don’t even have the decency to learn from it. And we’re always running out of time.

Maybe that’s why I have a problem with all this legacy talk—it’s just pressure to be something none of us really are: perfect. But legacies aren’t built on perfection. They’re built on the messy, jagged edges of who we were and what we did, the people we loved, and yes, even the people we pissed off along the way. And if I’m lucky, maybe I’ll leave behind something real enough that no one has to rewrite the story to make me fit into someone else’s mold of who they think I should’ve been. Because I’d rather be remembered as I am than worshipped as someone I never could be.

So yeah, rest in peace, Brando. You were a grumpy, surly bastard with a talent that spoke louder than any of your words ever did. And maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s all any of us need to leave behind—a piece of art that speaks louder than we ever could, flaws and all. Because in the end, I don’t want to be remembered as someone I never was. And I don’t want to remember anyone else that way either. We’re all a mess of good and bad, of love and hurt, of what we got right and everything we got wrong. That’s real, and maybe that’s the point of living.

I’m a native Phoenician who’s been through hell and back. When I contracted this artist and told him I wanted a Phoenix tattoo I made it clear I didn’t want some feathery flowery pretty little bird… I was raised in the desert where everything tried to kill you. I wanted the grit and grim of a creature that would kill or be killed. And I wanted it on the tapestry of where I’m from. He gave me what I affectionately refer to as my fire-chicken on the blue base and 13 rays of the Arizona state flag. It is not demure or mindful… it’s fierce. RIP Brando... you were salty AF, but damn you were talented.

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Drinking: Fox Trail Small Batch Bourbon over ice water

Listening To: “Bathory’s Sainthood” by BoySetsFire