SNOHOMISH — Patrick Conley knew death was coming.
So he lived.
The Snohomish man plunged out of a plane, blasted down country back roads on his Harley and splattered through any mudhole his truck could find.
He cherished his wife and was a loving, hands-on father to his kids.
When death finally came last month — far, far too soon at age 29 — Conley had lived his life fully.
Except for one last request.
A few months before his death from leukemia, he told his wife about one unfulfilled desire. He wanted a tattoo.
No, that’s not possible, his doctors told him. His compromised immune system made it too risky, they told his family. This would have to be one request he’d have to forget.
He didn’t.
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Charity Daigneault met her future husband three years ago on the first day of her job at a downtown Snohomish bar.
She tried to bring Conley his mushroom burger and he played a little joke on her — he told her it belonged to someone else, sending her flustered to the other side of the bar.
It took her a few moments to forgive him and a month for him to work up the nerve to ask for a date. They walked the Centennial Trail together and talked. Soon, he was taking her for rides on his motorcycle.
After three weeks of dating, a seismic event changed their relationship.
Conley was following her home in his truck on a back road near Monroe. A dog raced across the road and Charity jerked the steering wheel. Her car swerved, flipped, hit a guard rail and caught fire. He jumped out of his truck and pulled her limp body out of the car, smothering the flames in her hair.
After a trip to the hospital, he drove her home and cared for her while she recovered. He never left.
Charity, 32, had been raising three children on her own and he stepped easily into the role of father. He quit his job as an auto mechanic and found a better paying job as a forklift operator.
Seven months after they met, she opened the front door to find Conley sitting on the steps with her children: In his hand, an open black velvet box with a diamond ring.
“I was going to do something special,” he told her. “But I couldn’t wait.”
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The proposal came on a Wednesday. His death sentence arrived the following Monday.
Conley’s lower back had been nagging him for weeks. He scheduled an appointment at the doctor’s office.
The doctor found a tumor growing on his kidney. Leukemia he had beaten at age 21 had come back with a vengeance. The tumor was malignant and it would likely kill him in a month, the family was told.
Doctors planned aggressive chemotherapy treatments to try and save his life. Charity and Patrick Conley planned a hasty wedding.
Three days later they exchanged vows in their living room surrounded by family and friends. The children were there, too: Wesley, Mickella and Morgan.
Conley survived more than two years after the fatal diagnosis. He didn’t waste a minute.
Painful treatments often sapped his strength. He didn’t complain. He did what he could around their home, cared for his children, loved his wife.
He brought Charity daisies just because and drove his children to every soccer game, track meet and wrestling match. He helped his youngest daughter learn to tie her shoes and often fixed his special secret recipe, “Daddy’s eggs.”
Conley did everything he wanted in life, except for getting the tattoo.
By the start of this summer, Conley’s health had deteriorated so much, it didn’t matter. He made an appointment with a Seattle tattoo artist.
He kept the design a secret. A few days before his appointment, he climbed in his truck and made the drive to downtown Seattle to pick up a rendering of the design.
A few hours later, Conley arrived home gasping for breath. He staggered up the stairs of their townhome and planted the design facedown on his bedroom dresser, and headed straight for bed. Charity called the hospice nurse.
Patrick Conley died the next morning on July 16. His wife sat by his side through the night, heard his last words, held his head as he drew his last breath.
In the emotional tumult, no one gave much thought to Conley’s only unfulfilled wish.
Except the hospice nurse. And she knew just who to call.
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People have made many a request of Matt Sawdon.
The one he got last month tops them all.
Sawdon, 33, and his wife, Heidi, run Sunken Ship Tattoo in Everett. He’s inked just about every design on just about every part of a person’s body.
The couple both share a special love for classic Sailor Jerry tattoo designs and all things 1940s and 1950s. Their shop has black painted floors, vintage nautical memorabilia on the walls and old dentist chairs. He favors slicked back hair, black jeans, a T-shirt and black workman’s boots.
Sawdon got a call from his mother, a hospice nurse, on July 16. Another nurse she worked with had a request. Would he fulfill a customer’s last wish for a tattoo — after the man’s death?
“I just agreed to it,” he said. “She told me it was the family’s wish and his last wish.”
Sawdon has little experience with death. He had never seen a body, never stepped into a funeral home, never had a close friend die.
He could understand the basic humanity of providing someone his last wish. He could relate to Conley — a father, a husband, a man nearly his own age.
The next day, he packed up sterile needles, gloves and a mask, black ink, a power supply and a medical tray, and drove with two helpers to an Everett funeral home.
“In the back of my mind, I thought I might pass out,” Sawdon said. “I felt light-headed. I just kept telling myself to take a deep breath and relax.”
The funeral director led him down into the basement to a sterile, fluorescent-lit room lined with tables. Conley’s body waited under a sheet. His left forearm lay outstretched. The director handed him the artwork Conley wanted.
The director asked if Sawdon might like to see Conley’s face. Sawdon did.
In the end, it was a cold, quiet room and a man who’d wanted something meaningful inked on his arm.
Sawdon found the work to be little different than what he would do at his shop. The tattoo took about 50 minutes and the ink appeared a bit darker than usual. The family, he thought, would be pleased.
Sawdon knew this request was unusual but he didn’t realize how rare until later. A tattoo post-mortem is unheard of, the funeral director told him. She kept checking on his progress as other funeral directors called for details.
He was just glad he could help.
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In the tumult of Conley’s last few hours, his wife found one last gift.
When it was clear he would die, she slipped into their bedroom and turned over the design for the tattoo that he had planned and wanted for months.
“I was shocked,” she said. “I was amazed. It was beautiful.”
Conley, fiercely proud of his Irish heritage, had chosen a Celtic cross.
Inside, outstretched hands cupped a sacred heart. Between his heart and the cross, the names he treasured above all: Charity, Wesley, Mickella and Morgan.
It confirmed what she had known all along.
“We were his everything.”
Debra Smith: 425-339-3197, dsmith@heraldnet.com.
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