My brother-in-law’s, Shannon Lowe’s, viewing was on Monday, and when we all arrived, we were surprised to see a new tattoo on his left arm: a red and black nautical star. Shannon had mentioned to Heather and me a couple weeks earlier that he’d always wanted one, but none of us had any idea that he got it on the Thursday before he was killed.

Upon returning home from the viewing, we looked up the meaning of the star. Sailors used to get the star as reminder to return home safely. It seemed fitting for Shannon’s last tattoo; he didn’t return home safely in a physical sense, but in a spritiual sense, he made it home.

Today Shannon’s parents and I went to Life Force Studios in Marion to get our own nautical star tattoos from Beau, an old college classmate. Pictures are available in this Facebook gallery.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 15th, 2009 at 4:55 pm and is filed under Grant County and Beyond. Both comments and pings are currently closed.