The Rebel Tattoo
During their first sociology class together at Blue Ridge Community College, the professor encourages his students to pair up and consider this ethical thought experiment:
You see a runaway trolley moving toward five tied-up people lying on the tracks. You control a switch that would redirect the trolley, saving the five people, but killing another standing on the side track. What do you do?
Seeing my daughter Annalyse without a partner, Jose Perez sits next to her and they wrestle for a solution together.
Neither of them can predict how that trolley will transport them to their wedding day.
Baby Poop Burritos
When Jose is six, his uncle picks him up after school to go to a circus. He remembers walking with his brother and sister past a pit of iguanas, sitting on an elephant, and thinking it is all so cool and terrifying. The horror is nothing to what comes next.
After the circus, the three siblings are dropped off at a bus station in the hope of a reunion with their parents, who, out of desperation, left Mexico for the states a year earlier. Having found enough work in North Carolina to rent a house trailer, Rene and Margarita Perez long for a reunion with their children.
Jose remembers fragments of the first two failed attempts to cross the border: one wet cold foot dips in the Rio Grande; a baby cries in the back of a van filled with 15 other Mexicans hidden by mattresses; flashing police lights; drinking rancid orange juice at a holding facility; separating from his siblings in an orphanage; eating his first American food he now calls Baby Poop Burritos.
The third attempt isn’t exactly a charm, but the children eventually made it to Fort Worth where their father, working on a nearby construction project, picks them up and drives them to their new home in Etowah.
When Jose first sees the single-wide trailer, sitting on the edge of a hill, he thinks it a palace. After hiding behind a couch and surprising their mom, the family reunites in tears.
Phoenix Rose
In a much different sense, our daughter, Annalyse Rose, suffers through her own childhood trauma. From an early age, she is nearly paralyzed by introversion, experiencing a hypersensitivity to stimuli and the needs of others. Feeling alone in a sea of motion and noise, it takes her seven months to work up the courage to say a word to her kindergarten teacher.
Annalyse eventually finds release, purpose and nurture through art and empathy. In high school, she wins numerous local and regional awards for her writing and photography, and spends a good deal of time in the guidance counselor’s office -- supporting her disenfranchised friends. In these matters, her hypersensitivity serves her -- and others -- well.
Annalyse’s art provides a way to channel her sensitivity creatively.
Blooming into her true self, Annalyse still struggles. Shortly before first attending Blue Ridge, she breaks up with her boyfriend and the immobilizing fear returns. Scheduled for 12 hours of classes her first semester, she experiences a panic attack while attending her first class.
As her parents, we encourage her to take just one class — ceramics, a course taught by Robert Wallace, who sees her gift and mentors Annalyse. The next semester she takes two classes; the third semester she meets Jose.
Nomads & DACA
Growing up, Jose works with his parents to clean houses, vacuum schools, and help pay the bills. At the same time, he desires more. A dreamer to the core, he graduates high school and asks, “What now?”
With scholarships reserved for those with proof of residency, excluded from in-state discounts, Jose works three jobs to pay for his first and second semesters at Blue Ridge. Beyond his own expectation, he secures a financial award to pay for his second year, at the end of which he asks again, “What now?” His drive only takes him so far.
In the only country he knows, Jose sometimes feels like a nomad, no country to call home, no hand-in-dirt connection to any land.
Just when he wonders how he will complete his education, the mother of his best friend and fellow tuba player, Matt, offers to help. Donna Welsh, and her mother, Nancy Hord, are only delighted to completely sponsor the rest of Jose’s education.
The Lights Go Off in the Ingle’s Parking Lot
Jose and Annalyse’s first date isn’t intended as one. They meet at the Mills River Ingle’s and drive to the theater to see Stephen King’s “It.”
It’s supposed to be just hanging out.
After the movie, they go back to Ingle’s and talk for hours after the parking lot lights go out. They know it then: they will be best friends.
Annalyse eventually returns to her car; while shuffling her music, Jose knocks on the window and tells her: “I like you a lot and would like to get to know you better.”
Annalyse gets out of the car, kisses him, throws him for a complete loop, and drives home.
The God Tattoo
On a date in Gatlinburg, after midnight, Jose wants to get a tattoo. Annalyse helps him pick it out and create the design. After hours at the Rebel Tattoo, the artist etches a series of symbols.
In Jose’s life the translation centers around God being greater than his highs and his lows. He believes himself to be one of the lucky ones. He’s never been hungry. Against the odds, he wins a scholarship and finds a family of caring sponsors. He’s in school and in love.
For Jose, the real reason for the tattoo resides in a feeling he can’t shake. It’s not just a matter of luck. As Jose’s dream unfolds, he sees the hand of God creating a way through the peaks and valleys.
The tattoo serves to remind Jose that his job is simply to stay on those paths, wherever they happen to lead.