As the eldest of 3 sisters, I had the privilege of growing up with three generations of women, all the way into my university years (my great-grandmother passed from cancer when I was in my second year of uni - my husband even had the pleasure of meeting Granny twice when she was ill). My great gran's father passed when she was 13 years old in 1934. She left school to start working at Woolworths and looked after her mother and youngest brother Hilton (only five at the time), and their mother ran a boarding house during the war to bring in an income for the family. My great great grandmother, Isit Martha King, was the second youngest of 13 children born to an Ostrich farmer originally from Wales - John Tregunner (or Tregunno) King - who, upon his death in 1917 in Oudtshoorn, bequeathed all his properties and wealth to his sons, effectively cutting his six daughters out of any opportunity with regards to the family wealth.

My great gran married in 1940 briefly to a man I now know by name only, before remarrying a man 11 years her senior in 1943 in Springs - my great grandfather Willem/Wilhelm (William, or Bill, as she called him) - "Better an old man's darling than a young man's fool" she told those who had anything negative to say about the "Maverick" as his friends called him. He was a mine worker and passed in 1980 from Miner's Phthisis. My great-gran never remarried and kept her wedding ring on her finger until the day she died in 2007.

My grandmother was the youngest of three children born in Springs. For some time, my grandmother was married to a man I have about 3 or 4 singular memories of - my mother's biological father - and without exposing too much family history and trauma, they, fortunately, didn't remain married. My grandmother met my grandfather (non-biological) while she was working as a secretary for a lawyer in Pretoria Central (the lady could type like a maestro, and I have many childhood memories of watching those hands dance across the keys). Just like a scene from the movies, my Zaida (grandfather in Yiddish) was leaving the building when he heard the sound of Elvis playing (he said he just had to follow it and find out who also liked Elvis), and there, as if in a dream, stood the most beautiful woman with the most beautiful long black hair and long legs.

My grandmother, having just gotten out of a terrible marriage, placed my grandfather in the proverbial "friend zone", and my grandfather, having been placed in the friend zone, pretended he was not at all interested in more than that. But one day, I would have the pleasure of attending their wedding at about the age of 8 or 9. Their marriage was such an example to us all of how good marriages can be - my grandmother's advice to me was to marry someone you were friends with because "the liking someone, not just the loving someone", was the key to their success.

My Zaida married a woman and gained two wonderful young daughters, my mom and her sister Ellie, as well as an industrious homemaker live-in mother-in-law, my great granny Theda. My mom fell pregnant with me in 1986 when she was 18, and my parents were married in January. At the age of 5, my Aunt successfully committed suicide, I only really ever spoke with my grandmother about it once before she died in 2021, but I grew up with many reminders of the aunty I would never remember, slippers, cards and letters, photographs. Her death created a permanent mark in our family that I can only really appreciate now as a parent myself.

My beautiful daughter was born in 2018, a tiny 2.64 kg baby doll, not premature, just tiny. I cried for the first two weeks as the hormones went back to "normal" and called my sister to help me decipher 'Breastfeeding 101' or just to moan about how clueless men can be about babies. I think deep down, all I wanted was my own "mommy", who was just unfortunately not emotionally available to me at that time.

My mother was a wonderfully complex woman, not perfect by any means, but wonderful, the type of woman everyone noticed when she walked into a room. She died in a horrific car accident at the end of 2019, two days before her birthday in October. My grandmother lived long enough to tragically lose both of her daughters in her lifetime. She was receiving treatment for leukaemia at the time (the treatment, however, was working, and she instead passed away from a heart attack while in hospital in Pretoria).

Nothing can describe the hole that these losses have left in my life - and by extension, my daughter's life. Who will never know the joy I felt going with my grandmother to work, or the smell of freshly baked cupcakes or rusks coming from the kitchen with the green linoleum flooring, or the shows we would put on for our family and charge entrance fees to. I have my two strong, amazing sisters, yes, but how do I create a bridge to my mother and grandmother and great-grandmother, something more tangible than worn-out static photographs pasted to a fridge so she can see their faces and know their names?

I guess with all this meandering through the whys and ifs and ands (were pots and pans…) in my head, I have just reached a place in my journey where I have realised that my time (as well as yours) is precious and finite. Life is too short to be doing work I don't want to do (or, quite frankly, am not skilled to do); while I have time here, I want to bring joy to the small few that I have the privilege to share my ideas and tattoos with, but simultaneously still have a life outside of these four tattooed walls. I want to spend all the time I can with my child (something my parents were not fortunate enough to have) and my husband. I want to experience the wider world out there. I have discovered a love of Zumba and painting denim. So these few designs are simply something else for me to leave behind one day, something to "spark joy." If you like them, great; if you don't, then great.