Siobhan, London

My tattoo story begins in sadness and ends in happiness. Five years ago my partner was diagnosed with terminal cancer. We thought he had only a short time to live. At one point, early into the shock of it all, he said to me in passing, “You’re a shooting star.” It was such a beautiful thing to say, and so surprising to me, because I don’t think of myself that way. But more than that, the idea that he had said this to me in the midst of what he was coping with made me think, Okay, I can do this. I can be strong. And I got this tattoo on my forearm to remind me of what he’d said. He survived the cancer –we are so lucky–and I treasure my tattoo.