Call this, a promise made, to his dying child, from the Front Page Sections, translated…
“Child, just as I’d promised, dad’ll take you to see the beautiful world outside!”, the one-year-old Shih-Kai Lee hadn’t seen the outside of the hospital since birth, until the end of his life; the moment he was placed in the terminal ward, his father made this promise to him.
The promise of the father, Jing-Hsiung Lee, it’d made Shih-Kai Lee, who had tubes sticking in and out, all over his body, smile; last month, his dear child passed, and, Jing-Hsiung Lee kept the “promise in the terminal ward to his son”, asked the tattoo artist, Shih-Yu Ding, to tattoo his son onto his arms, “So no matter where I go, there he’ll be”.
“He’d never seen the outside world,” said the thirty-year-old Jing-Hsiung Lee, his son was diagnosed with the rare spinal muscular atrophy, very shortly after birth, he’d needed a tube to help him breathe, and life support tubes were going in and out of his tiny stomach also, to keep him alive, in his short life, he’d never set foot outside of the hospital.
“How I’d wanted him to be like the other children, to head out to the zoos, to go to the parks”, Jing-Hsiung Lee stated, and yet, this was a dream that will NEVER come true. At the end of July, his son’s conditions took a turn for the worst, he couldn’t bear to see his own son in pain, and asked for him to be taken off of life support on August fourth.
He’d stated, the only time his son had ever seen the sun was near the end of July, when he was transferred to the hospital ward of Zhong-Shan Medical University Hospital, the person in charge of the ward encouraged him and his wife to take their son to the courtyard of the hospital for a short stroll.
“I will NEVER forget that look of curiosity, of excitement that my son had that very first time he’d seen the sun and the blue skies”, Lee recalled, back then, he felt so sad, as he held on tightly to his own son. The doctor in charge of the ward, Dr. Hsi-Cheng Chou suggested to him, that he can make a promise to his son, to keep him alive in his memories.
On August 3rd, the day before Shi-Kai Lee was taken off of life support, Lee held his son’s hands gently, as he said goodbye, “Child, I will tattoo you on my body, you will forever be cherished, daddy will take you out of see the world!”, Lee said, it was, as if his son understood him, he’d flashed him a smile; he’d told his son, “child, this, is a promise, from man to man, you must remember that!”, his son looked at him, as if to tell him, “okay”.
On the fifteenth of this month, Jing-Hsiung Lee is transferring to Poland to work for a year, he’d fulfilled his promise to his son right before his departure date, he’d tattooed his son’s face onto his right forearm, “That, would be like I’m holding his hands, as I took him out to visit the world”.
Such a heartwarming story, of a promise that the father made to his dying child, and now, he will have his son with him, wherever he goes, and he can begin healing from the loss of a child too.
The Tattoo Artist Has a Child Who is Also Ill, So He Could Empathize
The tattoo artist, Yu-Ching Ding said, most of the photographs that his clients showed him were radiant and beautiful, a nd that this was the very first time, that every single photo the client handed him had tubes connecting to the child in the picture, he’d spent an entire week, to redo the picture, so the child looks energetic, and his eyes glowing.
During the process of tattooing the photo onto the father, Ding heard the story of “a promise from man to man”, he was so shaken up that he started trembling, and couldn’t continue tattooing, because his son just turned one, and is currently battling a congenital heart condition, “I know what that feels like”.
Instead, Lee took the time to console with Ding, told him, that no matter how hard it gets, so long as he continued to fight for his child no matter what. “The Portrait of the Son” took a total of four hours to complete, as these two fathers exchanged words of encouragement to one another.
Such a heartwarming story, of loss, of fulfilling a promise made to a dying child, and, this father had begun healing slowly, and, because this child was too young when he died, the father tattooed the child onto his own body, and now, no matter where he goes, there his child will be, right by him too.
Photograph: Courtesy of UDN.com…