"I'm sorry, honey, he’s dead." Those horrible words still ring in my ears, even after 35 years.
That tragic news was delivered to me when I was barely 14 years old. I was spending the night with a cousin, and the sad duty fell on my aunt to tell me that my dad had just died at the age of 44 of a heart attack. My big, strong, almost-perfect daddy whom I had just kissed good night only a few hours earlier after the annual Firemen’s Barbeque in the Winters City Park.
How in the world could this have happened? We were a very happy, lose-knit family. Sure we struggled to make ends meet, but our home was filled with tons of laughter and I didn’t know we were poor. In act, I lived a pretty sheltered life, I learned. I had a vivacious grandma and grandpa with scores of aunts and uncles and cousins galore. As naive as it sounds, I didn’t ever think or know about death because it had not touched my large family until this incredibly sad night.
So the first funeral I ever attended was for my beloved daddy. I asked myself and God what could have possibly gone so terribly wrong or this to happen. And especially when my mom was expecting her fifth child. We needed our daddy.
Sure my dad smoked a lot, but so did lots of folks back then. And although I hated the way it smelled and made him cough, I had no idea of the seriousness of such a habit. But trust me to say that following my dad’s death, some very difficult times followed for my family and me.
Almost every night until I left home four years later I watched my mother cry over the death of my daddy and the overwhelming feelings she must have had trying to raise five kids alone. She sat up late into the night, every night – smoking cigarettes.
No matter how much we kids begged, she would not quit smoking. No matter what the doctors told her, she would not quit. She said the cigarettes calmed her nerves and because she had been smoking since she had been smoking since she was 14 years old she wasn't going to quit for me or anyone else.
Then, like a recurring nightmare, I got the call late one night that my sweet, sad mother had had a stroke. Two days later, at age 54, she died. My heart had not begun to mend from my daddy’s death and now my mom was also gone, leaving five children alone.
My brother, sisters and I are extremely close and we love each other deeply. We talk often and try to take care of one another – physically and emotionally. But we still hurt, even after all these years.
It’s pretty sad that neither of our parents got to see us all get married, graduate from college, have babies and accomplish some goals. Our children didn’t have those grandparents to see them be born, learn to walk, talk and run, lose their first tooth, hit a home run, perform in the school play, catch a football, or win a championship. They didn’t get to see them be baptized, listen to their graduation speeches, see them marry the love of their life, and have babies of their own.
I’ve heard that there’s nothing like having grandchildren. I haven’t experienced that blessing yet. But it saddens my heart to know that my parents will never know my children and my children’s children. My parents didn’t even live long enough to really know me.
And that still makes my heart ache beyond belief.
If you smoke, you may think that that’s just your business. I hope my story will convince you otherwise.
If you choose to continue to smoke, please gather all your loved ones, especially your spouse and your children, look them in the eyes, and tell them that they will need to learn to understand that your cigarettes are more important to you than they are. That you love them but not enough to give up something that is addictive, costly, smelly, and may kill you or even one of them.
Tell them that their hopes and dreams and love are not enough for you. That you deserve to do what you want and it’s nobody’s business if you smoke – even if it breaks their hearts and scars them for the rest of the lives.