Purple awareness ribbon tattoo with the name Andrew in black script on the forearm, beside a silver charm bracelet.

Purple awareness ribbon and name on forearm

Lettering · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A tattoo of a purple awareness ribbon with the name Andrew in black cursive script written across the lower part of the ribbon. The ribbon is shaded with soft purple tones and pale highlights, while the lettering is solid black with smooth, even linework. The close-up shot shows the forearm against a light background, with a silver charm bracelet sitting at the wrist.

Lettering Forearm Awareness ribbon Ribbon Name Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The river had been dry since the grandmothers' grandmothers, so when the water came back up the valley the people of Coldharbour did not trust it. Ruth Eversley kept the sluice at the mill, and every morning she walked the bank with a pot of lavender dye and a length of lilac cloth, tying a ribbon to each post where a boat had gone under in the years of the drought.

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Her son Andrew had gone out past the weir in the spring, looking for the drowned bell that the old town said still rang under the mud. He did not come back up with it. Ruth tied his ribbon to the last post by the ford and wrote his name across the knot in the black ink the traders brought from the coast, letter by letter, because that ink would not run in the rain and the river would not take it.

When the water finally cleared in autumn, the boatmen said they could see the posts all the way to the sea, each one dressed in purple like a line of mourners. A stranger from the north stopped at the ford to water his mule and asked why the ribbons were so bright. Ruth told him the posts were not for the dead. They were for the living who had to pass them, and every boat that goes through the ford must read a name before it moves on.

The stranger read the name on the last post, nodded, and went upriver without another word. Ruth went back to her sluice, and that night the bell rang once under the water, very faint, as if someone had finally answered.