Maggie Ritchie

What inspired your most recent tattoo?

My last tattoo was a dragonfly, representing my son who had passed in 2022. In fact all of my recent tattoos are all about Ryan. Before he had passed he had a pendant hanging on his rear view mirror and it was a dragonfly, he said it was his good luck charm (until his luck ran out, unfortunately). We sold his car and I am now wearing the pendant daily, never taking it off, I got a tattoo on my right forearm of a realistic dragonfly (Dragonflies are seen as new beginnings).

If your ink could speak, what would it say?

That I’m a grieving mom, who never gave up on her son, no matter what he had done. My tattoos tell a story of the love that I have (had) for Ryan. I have birth flowers of the whole family, I have a sugar skull owl (Ryan’s birthday 10/23/1988, mine 10/25/1955), we both loved De Los Muertos and owls. I have an image of his face, and someone gave me a black rose at his memorial, I have tattooed on my arm with his signature in the stem.

What would you do with the $25,000?

I would travel to the places Ryan and I always talked about going as a family and never did! Donate to a much needed food bank program, and give back to the treatment facility that Ryan lived at for a year.