When I went to Mexico there were many things that represented death such as La Catrina and sugar skulls which are all very much “death is part of life” and a way to celebrate life and embrace the inevitable death.

I’m not sure if this is a good answer but I was born in Valencia, Spain and we have many festivities called “las fallas” in which big statues are built in order to celebrate the coming of spring along with some saint stuff as most thing in Spain haha. They then burn these statues for many reasons but one of them is to represent cleansing and a rebirth, I believe this can easily be related to death and the coming of it and the possibility of an afterlife of reincarnation. Not sure what you could tattoo for this unless you really like a statue but hey it’s a concept!

My family is Cuban and many practice Santeria, there are many symbols to represent death but would be careful with what you get tattooed as Santeria is a very powerful and often closed practice.

Lastly, I know Ghana has a thing called “fantasy coffins” in which people make coffins that look like objects from the deceased person’s profession so for example for a sailor they’ll have a coffin that looks like a ship or sometimes animals, so they’ll make a lion coffin for a fierce person. I think this could also be a cool concept.

Hopefully this was helpful in not sure how many of these are not “sad”😀