Emilie and Brady Kiser Ink Teddy Bear Tattoos in Honor of Their Son

24 September 2025

Emilie and Brady Kiser (left); Emilie Kiser's tattoos. Credit : Emilie Kiser/Instagram; Syd Smith Tattoo/TikTok

In the quiet aftermath of heartbreak Emilie and Brady Kiser made a deeply personal gesture of remembrance on September 23 when they got matching fine-line teddy bear tattoos. The new ink, shared by tattoo artist Sydney Smith on TikTok, is meant to honor their younger son Theodore affectionately nicknamed “Teddy” who arrived in March 2025. The couple endured a devastating loss earlier this year when their 3-year-old son Trigg tragically drowned in May.

The video showing the new tattoos reveals delicate outlines of teddy bears etched onto their arms. Emilie already had tattoos: among them a cowboy hat and the name “Trigg,” a poignant reminder of the child she lost. In posting the video, the couple allowed followers a window into their grief and their bond in tragedy. The studio where the work was done is in Scottsdale, Arizona, and the couple came together for the session.

Just days before the tattoos appeared the couple had broken a months-long silence. On September 20 Emilie published a home “reset” vlog, her first content since Trigg’s death. In that post she held a necklace inscribed with “Trigg,” expressing that sharing again felt “really nervous” yet meaningful. She said she missed interacting with the community she built online and hoped to reconnect gradually.

The tattoos do more than memorialize. They seem to signal the couple’s effort to lean into their grief together and move forward as a family. Teddy’s name in the design connects their new life to the one they lost, bridging sorrow and hope. Viewers and followers have commented on how the tattoos feel like acts of love, ways to carry absence on their skin rather than let it vanish.

For a mother and father whose world changed in an instant, the decision to mark their bodies with matching art is both intimate and public. They are choosing, in their own way, to live through loss while publicly honoring it. The teddy bear motif is gentle neither muted nor noisy a symbol of childhood innocence held in memory.

Their story underscores how grief often demands expression not just in words but in visuals and rituals. It reminds us that tattoos today are not just fashion detail or cool aesthetics. They can carry histories, pain, love, remembrance, continuity. And when two lives commit to that image together, the bond is both internal and shared outward.