After the death of their husband and father, Becky Flores and her children made sure they would always have a piece of him wherever they went.
Becky Flores, her daughter Elizabeth “Elle” Parker andson Josh Flores, decided to get tattoos in honor of the late Norman Flores.
He and Becky had been together since she was 20 years old, until he died of brain cancer six years ago. The couple had four children together: Elizabeth, 30, Josh, 26, Noah, 18,and Dylan, 14.
Three months after his passing, Becky Flores and her daughter and son went to a tattoo shop to get inked together in Norman’s memory. The three sat with each other, taking turns getting tattooed for about an hour and a half to two hours each.
As a Catholic family, they chose to get tattoos of a prayer that comforted them in their grief.
The passage, titled “Come To Me,” was on the prayer card given to family and friends at Norman Flores' funeral in 2012. It tells about God giving rest, and loved ones tearfully accepting his passing.
Each family member had the same prayer, but with designs on the sides special to each of them: clouds on his wife to represent heaven, and an olive branch for his daughter.
Flores served as a judiciary court marshal for 14 years, so his son’s tattoo had bullets and handcuffs on the sides to represent Flores’ profession.
The family’s younger son Noah Floresis getting his matching tattoo to honor their late father now that he’s old enough.
Tattoos for dad
But just one tattoo wasn’t enough for the family to fully pay respects to their lost loved one —Becky and Josh Flores, and Elle Parker each got tattoo sleeves with different images representing his life.
Their entire right arms are dedicated to dad.
On Parker’s arm, she has imagery of heaven, done by their favorite tattoo artist Paulo “Mad Pow” Madlangbayan at Legends Tattoo in Tumon.
“You can see the doves carrying the cancer ribbon to heaven, and there’s a stairway to heaven,” she said, describing her tattoos. “Then you have the angels down here, and we’re still going to put another angel on a tombstone.”
Parker said she chose images of heaven, because it’s comforting for her to think of where her father is now.
“Because I know he’s there,” she said.
Just like with the handcuffs and bullets on his prayer tattoo, Josh Flores has his dad’s court marshal badge number on his arm to honor his father’s line of work.
His right arm sleeve also has an angel to show his dad is watching over their family, and roses for each member of the Flores clan.
On Becky’s sleeve, she has a combination of the themes of her two children’s tattoos: an image of her husband’s marshal badge, praying hands, angel wings and bullets.
Inspired by mom
Although the family has gotten hundreds of dollars worth of tattoos for Norman Flores, he only had a couple of tattoos himself.
The inspiration for their ink addiction is their matriarch, Becky Flores.
Flores got her first tattoo at 24 years old and has been addicted ever since.
“It’s like a stress release,” she said, smiling.
“When people are like, ‘Oh my god, does your mom know you have tattoos,” I’m like, ‘She has more than me,” Parker said. “It’s just a family thing, it’s how we bond.”
Seeing their mom with tattoos growing up, the kids didn’t wait long to get some of their own.
Parker got her first ink at 18 years old, while Josh Flores was only 16.
“I told her to wait for me, but she went and got it — it was a dragon,” Becky Flores said, laughing at her daughter. “You ever see ‘Mulan’? It looked like Mushu!”
“I was young and dumb at the time,” Parker said. “I was at the point where I just wanted a tattoo. It didn’t really mean anything until I got older.”
Parker jokes around and says she doesn’t want to be just like her mom, but she said the main reason she wanted to start getting tattoos so badly was because of her.
The mother and daughter have matching left arm sleeves, both with similarly-designed cartoon skulls representing their children.
Parker, a mother of two, said she would love to get matching tattoos with her own children someday.
“I hope they follow our family thing,” she said. “My kids are already drawing on themselves. And I would be glad to take them myself.”
“It’s a requirement,” Josh Flores said.
The siblings and their mother enjoy coming along with each other to get tattoos, just for fun.
“It just sucks sometimes watching someone else get a tattoo when it’s not me,” Parker said. “But you know, it’s support.”
They even get each other tattoos as gifts most of the time, Flores said.
“That’s what we ask for for Christmas, like hey just pay for my tat,” Parker said.
The family now has so many tattoos, they’ve lost track of the number. Josh Flores has ink all over his arms, back and legs; Parker on her arms, back and sides; and arms and back on their mom.
Now that tattoos are becoming more popular and socially accepted, Parker said she receives more compliments than criticism for her body art.
The only disapproval that sticks with them is their grandma’s, the siblingssaid.
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“She says ‘You’re destroying the temple of God,” Josh Flores said, laughing.
“She’s very old school Chamoru,” Parker said.
For the most part, people come up to Parker to tell her how beautiful her tattoos are, and ask where she got it done.
“In the past, people thought only drug dealers or convicts get tattoos,” she said. “But it’s our body, and we’re showing what we love. If it’s family members we want to keep with us forever and it’s permanent, we’re gonna do it. It doesn’t bother me if people don’t like it, because it’s not their body. It only matters what myself and my family likes.”
