My dad had tattoos. He served in the Navy, part of the Greatest Generation. He had an anchor on one bicep. A battleship on the other forearm. And above the battleship, a young woman with curly hair wearing a crackerjack hat with a few of his ports of call underneath her smile. We always said she was Mom.

My sibs got tattoos at different times. My one sib originally had a little unicorn with a rainbow and a kitty-cat with her little paw in the air. Not my style. When Dad died, she had an anchor tattooed on her ankle.

My other sib is a musician and had an eighth note with a rose tattooed on her chest. She got an anchor, too.

I always wanted a tattoo of a menacing dragon. One that I would wear over my back and shoulder with the tail just curling over the top of my arm. If I wore a tank top, you would see the tail and wonder what the whip was attached to.

But I never got the tattoo. The colors would fade, and my imagination had vibrant colors. Worse, as I aged, it would sag. And anyway, it’d probably hurt.

Yesterday I had my mouth tattooed so they can track the size of the tumor in there. In my head, it looks like a dragon. And it will kick evil’s ass.