In August 2017, little 3-day-old Everly “Evie” Backe underwent her first open-heart surgery due to her “critical, complex congenital heart defect,” as her mom Lauren explained to People. Before she got to blow out her first candle, she’d undergone a further two surgeries.
While the little girl looks a picture of health, she was left with significant scarring, in particular her “zipper” scar, as her family have named it, on her chest. And in the most loving of gestures, her dad Matt, decided to become her “zipper buddy” by having the same scar tattooed onto his own chest.
According to his wife, Matt decided “out of the blue” to get the tattoo last year to honor their daughter, and so that she wouldn’t feel alone. The family decided to pool together and present Matt with a gift certificate to a tattoo parlor so he could get the tattoo done.
Matt is delighted with the result, explaining to Good Morning America, “It really makes me happy that they look the same.”
Lauren also shared her daughter’s reaction to her dad’s new inking: “My daddy got a tattoo like my zipper so that I don’t feel alone…and he wants to be special like me.”
However, the cheeky little 4-year-old also did what kids do best, as her mom explained to People:
“While she was thrilled that she had someone just like her, in true Evie fashion she started to tease him a bit. She’s very much into a copying phase of copying things we and her brother say, so she told her dad that he was copying her.”
Both the Backes have used tattoos to express their love and support for their children. Lauren had a EKG line with a heart placed in the middle on her forearm. At each end of the line is drawn the first initial of her children: Evie and Jack.
And today we celebrate...