The Story behind the tattoo:
I was very close friends with my high school english teacher, hung out with him everyday, as did many of the other students at my school (faculty and students were close, it was an alternative school).
One day his son get sick, they thought he was dehydrated and he was admitted into the hospital for IV fluids and some further testing. My mother is a nurse in the pediatric unit and his son, Andrei, was her patient. They soon realized that they both knew me and talked for a while. Andrei told my mother all about going to Hawaii and feeding the turtles sea weed by hand. Shortly after, he was diagnosed with leukemia. My mother conforted his crying younger brother, while the parents were comforting him. He was 12 years old. After comforting them, my mother left the room and was talking to a doctor about Andrei's trip to Hawaii and the doctor said, "at least he saw it while he still could..."
That night, when my mother was at work, she called me and said, "we are going to New Orleans". Because every year my family goes on vacation, every year they ask me where I want to go and every year I say New Orleans.
Every year we go to Wisconsin Dells.
I asked my mother how we were going to afford to go to New Orleans and she said she would pull out credit cards. I asked her why she is doing it and she said "because you never know what is going to happen, and I know how much you want to see that city".
So we went and I fell in love with the city. It is my home and I hope to move there as soon as I can. I learned so much from the culture and the people there, it was amazing.
2 months later, Hurricane Katrina hit and destroyed the city of my dreams.
After a week of hell, watching CNN, my mother and I tried to go on with our lives, but we were devestated by city being destroyed.
We spent a lot of time with Andrei. We visited him up at the hospital.
After the first year, they decided to have a bone marrow transplant.
Your parent won't ever be a match for you, bone marrow-wise, but you have a 1 in 5 chance of a sibling matching. Andrei had 1 brother.
He was a perfect match. (Miracle) His younger brother went through the pain to donate to Andrei.
The donation was a success like the doctors had never seen (Miracle).
He did well for months.
Then a tumor on his head wasn't diagnosed early enough. He went unconscious from the pressure it was putting on his brain. 2 weeks later, the tumor miraculously shrank and he was conscious again and eating.
3 days later he died at the age of 13.
Throughout the whole time he stayed positive and happy. The family was soo close, I used to wonder why would something like this happen to such a good family, but then I realized they were one of the rare few families that would make it through this alive. Andrei was a special, brilliant boy and my tattoo is not only in memory of him and New Orleans, but more importantly the things I learned from both.

Just a little explanation of the New Orleans Jazz Funeral. The family and friends of the person follows behind the coffin while a big brass band plays somber music. They walk slow and mourn the loss of their loved one. Once the coffin is laid in the ground, they play upbeat music and go wild, dancing and rejoicing. They celebrate the life that the person had. I don't think funerals are just to mourn for the person, I believe they should celebrate the time you did get to have with them and that is why I chose the jazz funeral as my tattoo.