As a child, she took him everywhere: on vacation, to the Efteling, to stay parties. Now Lianne Bertrums (20) from Den Bosch is an adult, but her beloved hug duck ‘Kwakje’ stays close forever. Since November he has been immortalized on her arm as a tattoo. “I wanted something that had meaning, and what could be more special than something that has always brought a piece of safety and comfort?”
She found an artist who specializes in ‘hand poke‘Tattoos, a technique where the ink is put in the skin by hand and dot for dot, instead of a usual tattome machine that moves back and forth quickly and makes clean, dark lines. “This fits better with the softness of the hug,” she explains.
The tattoo is a way for Lianne to wear the pleasant memories of her childhood with her forever. “I had a very nice childhood. A lot outside, many friends, a warm family. The tattoo reminds me that everything will always be fine in the end. That used to be, and that is still the case now.”
Kwakje already got his name when Lianne could only talk. “I just called him that,” she says. Everywhere she went, Kwakje went with it. “I think that was just a kind of feeling of safety. It felt nice to have him with me,” she says.
And that is precisely why he is now on her skin: she really has her hug with her. She makes no secret that he is still in bed with her at home, but she doesn’t scream from the rooftops either. “My best friends know, but I don’t mention it that often.”
“My friend and I now sleep with the hugs.”
There is one person who understood her better than anyone: her friend Tijmen. During the first time they slept together, she had not taken her hug. But she could just as well have done that: “I immediately saw that he also had hugs in his bed. It was special that we also found each other in it. Now we sleep with the hugs.”
When Lianne told about her tattoo idea, he was immediately enthusiastic and decided to have his birth hug to tattooed.
As a student anesthesia employee in the operating room, Lianne always wears short sleeves. “When people see the tattoo, they always ask what it is,” she laughs. Then she likes to explain that it is her birth hug. The reactions are actually always positive. “People find it cute and a beautiful story.”
Lianne believes that people don’t have to be ashamed when they are still attached to a hug. “Some things just remain important, even when you get older. Maybe that is not a hug for everyone, but a feeling such as safety and confidence from your youth.” Kwakje is in any case immortalized on her arm: “And I am extremely proud of that.”
