thank you!

thank you thank you thank you thank you

last night we reached our goal of 250 dollars for our sister’s tattoo.

and now we are currently at 265 dollars! which is 15 dollars over the goal!

holy shit!

this has been incredible to be a part of. and so thank you to everyone who has participated, supported, donated, reblogged, retweeted, sent good energy, well wishes, letters, etc. thank you.

i love you. really. i am flushed w amazement. i am so happy that we are able to hold the space so that aaminah can love and mourn in her own way and in her own time. that we can celebrate radical love in the face of death.

thank you.

For me to try to explain how important Eric is to me would be impossible. He was my best friend, my ex-husband, my son’s father, my compañero. Maintaining communication and getting to know each other again in preparation for his coming home led me to realize that although we had both grown and changed a lot over the years, we still held shared beliefs, ideals, and dreams. i realized that we would probably eventually end up together again but i didn’t want him to have assumptions so i didn’t tell him that. i didn’t tell him just how happy i was about him coming home and i didn’t tell him how much i love him. i regret that now.

The tattoo design that i chose is a dreamcatcher with a feather – signifying our shared Blackfeet/Blood heritage – surrounded by his name, which is in turn surrounded by the transliteration of the Arabic for “To Allah we belong and to Allah we return”, which is what we Muslims say in times of hardship, especially death. It’s the sort of tattoo that he would have loved, and it’s something that i will never be ashamed to wear in his honor and his memory. In this way, i wish to hold him close to me, and close to my heart, always.

(the pix:

1. collage by aaminah that says ‘learning to love is a revolution’ with pictures, drawings and photos of mothers and children

2. aaminah’s sketch of the tattoo.

3. a photo of aaminah holding a photo of eric.)

almost there!

thank you thank you thank you to everyone who has contributed to our sister's tattoo. we are so close to reaching our goal of 250 dollars so that aaminah can get a tattoo memorializing her fallen companero and the father of her son.
thirty five dollars to go! woohoo!
mother's day is tomorrow for most of you. and it would be a beautiful gesture moment to give a small (or large) donation to support our sister's tattoo.
supporting and celebrating a mama celebrating her love of her son's fallen father.

chip in

wow.

we have reached 125 dollars! from about eight contributors. half way there!
thank you. so much.
for the last 125 dollars that we need to raise in order that aaminah can get her tattoo, i have placed a chip-in box on the side of the blog. that way you can see how much money is raised.

so please. support radical love. any amount helps. and is deeply appreciated.

dear beautiful people

dear beautiful people, thank you for all of your contributions! my internet has been a bit wonky lately, but i am amazed and excited to announce that we have raised 105 dollars as of today! yay! wow! only 145 dollars left to reach our goal. so please give as much or as little as you can. and share this story of revolutionary love in the face of death with others. remember that we build our own community one day at a time...

i love aaminah and eric's story. it is a story that we dont often get to hear. a story of discovering who you are piece by piece and learning to reclaim your heritage in the face of a world that tells you to ignore who and where you come from.
when aaminah said she wanted to get a tattoo to memoralize eric, i knew that i wanted to help her get this tattoo. but she can't afford it on her own. and i can't afford it on my own. and so i am asking all of you to donate what you can for this ink and flesh memorial.
sometimes, life is really complicated. death is complicated. but a tattoo close to aaminah's heart of her fallen companero is really simple.

please donate what you can.

our sister's tattoo

dear friends and familia,

we are raising 250 dollars to support our sister, aaminah, who, a few weeks ago, lost her best friend, ex-husband, son's father, and compañero.

please donate as much as you can. may we as a community hold her and her family in our hearts.

in memory of him and in love for aaminah we are fundraising for her to get a tattoo in honor of his life. so that she can hold him close to her heart, always.

this is her sketch of the tattoo.

a dreamcatcher with a feather - signifying our shared Blackfeet/Blood heritage - surrounded by his name, which is in turn surrounded by the transliteration of the Arabic for "To Allah we belong and to Allah we return", which is what we Muslims say in times of hardship, especially death.

For me to try to explain how important Eric is to me would be impossible. He was my best friend, my ex-husband, my son's father, my compañero. Maintaining communication and getting to know each other again in preparation for his coming home led me to realize that although we had both grown and changed a lot over the years, we still held shared beliefs, ideals, and dreams. i realized that we would probably eventually end up together again but i didn't want him to have assumptions so i didn't tell him that. i didn't tell him just how happy i was about him coming home and i didn't tell him how much i love him. i regret that now.

The tattoo design that i chose is a dreamcatcher with a feather - signifying our shared Blackfeet/Blood heritage - surrounded by his name, which is in turn surrounded by the transliteration of the Arabic for "To Allah we belong and to Allah we return", which is what we Muslims say in times of hardship, especially death. It's the sort of tattoo that he would have loved, and it's something that i will never be ashamed to wear in his honor and his memory. In this way, i wish to hold him close to me, and close to my heart, always.