Dear Reader,

On Labor Day weekend, 1991, my parents, brother and I were waiting for the results of a test which would tell us whether my mother had lung cancer.

If the answer was yes, given the size of the mass on her X-ray, it was inoperable. All our spouses could do was watch helplessly as we paced or forgot to breathe because we were so scared.

It also happened that that weekend was my parents’ wedding anniversary.

It also happened that it was only a little more than six weeks since my brother’s wedding.

On that day we were so happy. The pictures show us and our friends, laughing, eating and talking.

Before.

We knew in our brains she was playing with fire in the most literal way. We did not know that in our hearts.

Denial to the max. We were champions at it, the “don’t-know, do-know” dance. We would beg her to stop. Argue. Give in. Give up until the next time.

I hoped, irrationally, that because we had “tried” yet again, somehow our failed efforts still might give her some sort of protective shield against the enemy.

One fussing equals one missed terrifyingly close call. That was my algebra on smoking—-no better than my work was in that math class in high school.

She had smoked since she was a college freshman. Desperately homesick, she comforted herself in her practice room at the piano for hours with coffee and cigarettes. Aside from that two-year break, she lit the next one before she was through with the last.

We did not know that she would only have another 408 days to desperately try to sneak a smoke. Why quit now? she reasoned.

Labs back up on holidays. I did not know that it would be Thursday before we got that terrible report.

Then, the bad news came. Of course, then we would have been glad to go back to waiting.
Before.
Waiting, as it turned out, had not been the most terrible thing.
How quickly our perceptions shift.
Now, the answer was the most terrible thing. Our failed crusade was over. Tobacco had thoroughly routed us. We wouldn’t get to fight again.

Many people say that they forget, for a few minutes or hours, that someone they loved is dead. They set the person’s place at the table automatically before they realize that person will not be at dinner. Or they say, “I told myself I needed to call right away before I remembered….”

Not me. The day my mother died, I was forever conscious of a light that had turned off in my life.

It felt as if a five-year-old knew her night-light had gone out and, worse, there were no more for sale anywhere.

Patients, one at a time, have to find their own answers.

The numbers of women smokers remain a major public health crisis because they are more vulnerable to nicotine’s powers.

She always said, “But I am addicted.” No one understood that then.

I would counter with, “Good try. No, Mama. I see addicts all of the time. Forget that one. Start over.” Sadly, she was all too right.

To make us feel better, she would “cut back.” Researchers now have found that cutting back or smoking “light” cigarettes doesn’t win the lungs any advantage.

Women who can’t win their struggle with smoking need to understand the game is rigged by the manufacturers, who know precisely how to “dose” a cigarette to keep women in particular coming back.

If a female you care about is, like my mother, addicted to nicotine, badgering will not help. This is not a free choice they are making, the hard core smokers.

Do your homework online. Read about tobacco addiction. Make clear that you are ready to help in any way you can when the smoker is ready. Be prepared for slip-ups or outright failures.

Give your smoker this note if you want as a way of starting the conversation anew. No judgments. Just support.

If you are a smoker—-male or female—-rather than be angry that yet another anti-smoking message is being delivered to you, ask yourself, “Is this what I want to leave behind? People wondering why they couldn’t get through to me? People saddened by the fact that I lost years I might otherwise have enjoyed with them?”

Will your family, knowing you likely would die for them if necessary, understand when they see you actually die for cigarettes?

Think about that cliché. “I am about to die for a cigarette.” How many times have you said those words?

About to die for. A cigarette.

Yes, as my mother often said, we all are going to die of something. Yes, as she said, if she developed lung cancer, it would be her responsibility and no one would see a tear from her. She was as good as her word.

But she forgot to consider how many, many people would shed tears for her.

Like all addicts, she could look me in the eye and tell me her cigarettes were “her friend.”

I would say, through clenched teeth, that no object could be her friend because it couldn’t love her back.

She would fix her big blue eyes on me and say plaintively, “But it’s what I do for myself, sweetheart.”

No. No. No. It is what was being done to her by tobacco—-her drug of choice—-whose golden, cured leaves are so beautiful that they do not hint at how deadly they are.

If you smoke, there is clinical help if you are ready to quit.

Please make an appointment as soon as the doctor’s office opens Tuesday morning.

Take a non-smoking friend for moral support.

Air out your house. Get rid of clothing that smells like smoke or has holes which remind you to look for your cigarette. De-tobacco your house, your car and anywhere else you work.

That will help enormously, coming into a fresh place where cigarettes don’t whisper to you, “Find me. I’m your friend. Where are you?”

If you’re not ready to quit, you’re not. Save up for the time when you are. Going through the motions is self-defeating and may delay your getting serious about quitting.

No one quits for good just because of story about another dead smoker.

If you are not ready, then ask yourself if you are open to asking yourself, each Labor Day or any other anniversary date that means something to you, if this is the year you are ready to do the work to be liberated from the smoke, fire and tar? That, in itself, is a step in the right direction. Being willing to think about it.

Tobacco is not the friend of any smoker. Your friend is medical help.

Whatever you are doing this Labor Day, have a great time, stay safe and savor the moments you have with the people who are important to you.

We’ll be back on Tuesday.

CBC