Smoking

Just before Nick and Jay were born I had managed to get my mom to stop smoking--or maybe Nick and Jay managed to do it, without even trying. School had taught me how harmful cigarettes could be: cancer causing, bad for your teeth, tar build up on your lungs. I didn't want that for my mom, it was my job to let her know the dangers of what she was doing. But for some reason she persisted for the longest time. Science shows and evening news statistics helped prove my point again and again. She didn't smoke a pack a day like some people--the ones on the tobacco videos in school--but any amount of smoking wasn't worth the risk, not to me.

Like my father and beer, I didn't understand the connection, or the appeal. How could someone get enjoyment out of inhaling smoke? When I breathed smoke from a campfire or charcoal grill, all it ever did was forcep a sharp pain up my nose and to the back of my throat, sending me coughing and sneezing.

Some of my mom's friends from work smoked, and I guessed she smoked there too, not just on the back deck at our house. One time I saw my Aunt Nancie smoking at a family party--legs crossed, wrist bent holding the cigarette, chatting with one of my older cousins who held a cigarette of her own.

My mom never disagreed when I told her it was unhealthy, "I know it's bad, I know."

Again I didn't get it. She knew it was wrong but didn't mind? I didn't care whether or not it was my new baby brothers that made her stop--and not my long standing campaign, I was just glad she quit.