Hmm...Looks like I scared some people off with my rant about my sister. Sorry, but I had to let all that venom out somehow. Well, for the few who are still left, hopefully you won't be too offended by today's post.Today would have been my mother's 55th birthday. Her New Year's goal was to lose 55 pounds by her 55th birthday and then go with her best friend to the Coyote Ugly in Panama City and act like she was 25. Obviously, she's not going to get to do that now. You can blame it on asthma. You can blame it on the flu, or you could blame it what I blame it on--smoking.
My mother wasn't born with asthma. She didn't have asthma as a child or young adult; she only developed it within the last few years. She wasn't genetically predisposed to it; that is, asthma doesn't run in our family. She also was never exposed to asbestos, toxic mold, or any other asthma-inducing environmental factors except one--second-hand smoke.
For 54 years, my mother--a woman who had never even picked up a cigarette except to throw it away--had second-hand smoke blown in face on almost a daily basis. My father smoked the entire time they were married. My grandfather smoked until he developed emphysema. Even then, he continued to light up until the doctor put him on an oxygen tank. My great grandfather--my mother's mother's father--smoked until he attempted to throw a cigarette out of his car window and ended up setting the backseat on fire. My grandmother smokes at least a pack a day. My sister smokes that much as well. Basically, the only people in my family who don't smoke are me and the dogs.
A few years ago my mother had her lungs x-rayed. The x-rays showed that she only had half the lung capacity of an adult her age. Half. That's it. She asked the doctor if second-hand smoke could be to blame. He told her that it very well could be.
Now I know what a lot of you smokers are thinking. Very well could be isn't the same thing as definitely is, and you're right. It's not. Putting my lawyer hat on for a moment, I know that very could well be would never stand up in court. It would never prove that second-hand smoke nuked my mother's lungs and ultimately caused her death.
However, in taking off the lawyer hat and putting on my daughter one, I know that it did. I believe that, had my mother's parents, grandparents, ex-husband, and daughter quit their habit early on or at least aimed their smoke elsewhere, she'd be sitting in the passenger seat of her best friend's convertible right now, getting ready to dance on a bar top, down some shots, and do other things that would make me want to disown her. Because seriously, folks, who dies of the flu or asthma these days? Seriously, who?
So if any of you are looking for an incentive to quit or a reason not to start, there is one. It doesn't matter which side of the cigarette butt that you are on; smoking kills.
Okay, I'm stepping off my soap box now. I missed the first half of the Michael Jackson memorial, and I want to see if I can find any clips of Brooke Shield's speech online.
