Itwas Father’s Day in 2013. I had a surprise gift from two of my adult kids. When I say two, you may wonder how many kids I have. I have four in all, whom I am deeply proud of. They are beautiful adults and beloved souls.
All four celebrated Father's Day at my home with their partners.
Here’s an image of that surprise eight years ago.
My children’s arms with tattoos of their father’s handwriting.
You may wonder about the significance of these two tattoos, seemingly unrelated. No, they are related.
The top arm belongs to my 2nd daughter, and the bottom arm belongs to my youngest. The tattoo lettering is my family name Jayasinghe in Sinhala and English. The script ජයසිංහ is in my first language in Sri Lanka, the country where I was raised. The bottom lettering, Jayasinghe, is in English. Both are in my handwriting.
What a way to show gratitude! My handwriting is permanently inked into their arms.
The photo was taken on Father’s Day in 2013.
I feel stoked to be privileged to be their dad. Immensely grateful for the appreciation of my mark on them.
A few years after this great event, I considered doing something similar in my left arm to celebrate my four children, who nourished me with their thoughtful actions and words.
I made several design mockups, picking my four children’s handwriting names. Unfortunately, tattooing four names on the mid-lower arm is impossible. Abbreviating their names, I tried to shorten them to a few letters. Despite repeated efforts of creative combinations, I could not simply come up with a design pattern that made sense to my four children.
In 2018, five years had elapsed since that Father’s Day in 2013. I had not given up on the idea of my tattoo celebrating my family.
My son and his wife were expecting their first child, my first grandchild. So it was a significant milestone for me to see the third generation of Jayasinghes in this blessed country, Australia, which we call home.
In the meantime, I was in deep thought. If I was a good father to my four children, it was my father, Thomas Jayasinghe, who brought me up to be a good father one day. I am a product of his and my mother’s upbringing to be who I was and am now. I wanted to tattoo their handwriting on my arms.
Then I dug through my family archives to find the handwriting of our family name, Jayasinghe. I was also searching, looking for my mother’s maiden name Jayawardane. I wanted both family names in my original language, Sinhala. Finding a gold nugget in my father’s records did not take long. It was from my first ever job application when I was a seventeen-year-old, completed by him in Sinhala. The story of my first job application and interview is a separate story that you could read another time.
I looked further for my mother’s family name Jayawardane in the archives. I wanted to tattoo her handwriting on my other arm. But unfortunately, I could not find a record good enough to be reproduced by a tattoo artist.
On the day my first grandchild was born, I celebrated that significant family milestone by visiting a prominent tattoo artist in Surry Hills and getting my left arm tattooed with ජයසිංහ, my father’s handwriting. So, as my first grandchild came into this world, her grandfather was permanently etched with her great-grandfather’s handwriting.
Denzil’s left arm with his father’s handwriting in Sinhala
Now I have completed the cycle of tattoos in my family. I have my father’s handwriting on my left arm. Two of my kids have my handwriting on their left arms.
I am still looking for family records to reconstruct my mother’s handwriting so I can get it tattooed on my right arm. But I have not given up.
I often wish my father, Thomas, had seen his handwriting as a tattoo on my left arm when he was alive. He would have been immensely proud of what he had achieved through his son.
I await the day I can explain the meaning and significance of my tattoo to my grandchildren when they are old enough.
A Child of Curiosity How inherent inquisitiveness became a key driver in learning experiences. Denzil Jayasinghe · B orn in the mid-20th century, I am a product of the post-World War II era. My parents, who were teenagers when the war commenced, married in the 1950s. As a representative of the baby boomer generation, I was born under the astrological sign of Capricorn, the tenth sign of the zodiac. My birth took place at Zoysa Nursing Home, a renowned institution in Colombo, Sri Lanka, around 5 in the morning. Sri Lanka, known for its tropical climate, is a beautiful island nation south of India. This climate appealed to me, and I sought similar weather in my twenties, spending them in Dubai, where the winter resembles an Australian summer. Raised by religious parents, I held them in deep affection. However, the church teachings posed a paradox for a young mind, instructing one to love God more than one’s parents. I initially adhered to the Ten Commandments and other societal norms in ...
Neville at the Edge Denzil Jayasinghe 3 min read · 10 hours ago In the lazy, sun-dappled days at St. Joseph’s Novitiate, where the beach seemed to hum with the scent of jasmine and the distant promise of monsoon clouds, there was a little haven we boys held dear — the Milk Bar. It was a humble shack just beyond the school’s creaky gates, its tin roof glinting under the noon sun, its wooden counter cluttered with frothy glasses of Milo, bottles of sweet vanilla milk, and a jumble of pencils and dog-eared notebooks for forgetful lads like us. To us, De La Salle boys, it wasn’t just a shop. It was a sanctuary, where the weight of prayers and the Brother-Superior’s stern frowns dissolved into the clink of coins and the soft buzz of our chatter. Neville was always there, a gangly boy with limbs that seemed to outgrow him, as if they belonged to a taller shadow. His parents had sent him to the Novitiate dreaming he’d don a Christian Brother’s collar, but Neville, with his twice-failed ...
Packing lists An addiction to packing lists Denzil Jayasinghe 3 min read·Nov 6, 2022 My fascination with packing lists started when I was young. Eventually, it became a life-long habit, a kind of addiction. When I enrolled at the Christian brothers’ formative school at eleven, a packing list was given to my parents. 2 School shorts 2 School shirts, white 2 Baniyans, aka vests 4 Pairs of white socks 1 Sarong 2 Casual shirts 2 Casual shorts 2 Handkerchiefs 1 Toothbrush 1 Comb 1 Bedsheet 2 Pillowcases 1 Pair of black shoes 1 Pair of canvas sports shoes My parents went into fast gear to assemble the packing list. My father started from the bottom of the list, the shoes. He took me by bus to Colombo to P G Martins, a shoemaker. We came out of that shoe store with DS-branded black and Shinwa-branded canvas shoes. Also bought was a Ford suitcase, in shiny sky-blue colour. Mother bought vests and socks from Velona, a garment outlet run by one of our relations, Aunty Helen. A trip to a ta...
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