The next day I was putting a T on his arm when Tiny said, “Do me a favor, Lois, huh? Don’t forget me?”
The professor began to giggle in bed and ended up laughing, hard. “Do you think she’d be able to, even if she wanted? Look at her – she’s a human memo board.”
In “It’s Bad Luck To Die” by Elizabeth McCrackan, this particular quote stuck out to me the most because it represents what the story is about: how people affect and change us. Tiny gives Lois many tattoos while they are together. While he is changing Lois on the outside, Tiny is also changing her on the inside. The people we meet have a life-long effect on us, and more often than not that change occurs slowly over time. In the story, Lois takes several years to accumulate all the tattoos from Tiny, and with some courage she is able to give one to him before his passing. Lois will never be able to forget Tiny because of how he changed her as a person and the visible marks he left on her. We often do not realize how much the people we love are shaping who we are as people. You can look at things day by day and not really see a great amount a change, it usually takes a few years to truly see how greatly things have changed. If you were to look back at the person you were five years ago, would you say that you are the same or diferent. Personally I can attribute all the change to certain people and experiences, it is funny how even the worst people in my life had the same large impact as all the amazing people in life. The people we surrond ourselves with can shape our lives but it is important to not make them our life.