Always an Eckhardt
My sisters and I wanted to give a meaningful gift to our parents. Something that said, “Thank you for everything you’ve done for us,” but wasn’t something that could eventually be thrown away or lost. We now all live in different towns, with different last names, and even have our own little families—but that didn’t mean we weren’t all still connected.
In comes the idea of a family tattoo.
John Kautz had previously done one of my tattoos and one for my mom. He was so easy to work with that it was a no-brainer to ask him to be the artist to make this possible.
The design was simple, timeless—a sword, forged not of metal, but legacy.
“Eckhardt,” I remember my grandfather said, “means ‘bravery.’ It means sword.”
And that was it. The one word carried for generations, passed down in the invisible thread that connects us no matter where life takes us. Even if names change, paths diverge, we are bound together with black ink that could never be taken away.
It wasn’t about strength—it was about unity. It was about family.
When the last tattoo was finished, together we stood. A family. A legacy. An Eckhardt.