With the inevitable death of my grandmother always looming in the back of my head, I try to picture the good times. When she was healthy, or as healthy as one can be when smoking a pack of cigarettes, a day, and killing your insides with poison. I try to remember the person she once was. I try to remember the days when she would just sit there and play with my hair for hours. I try to remember the days when she would make me mac and cheese. I try to remember the days of spending countless hours at the pool. I try to keep remembering but I only see the now. It’s a hard pill to swallow.
I’m not sure I have the capability to wrap my mind around and truly understand how someone can poison their body. It’s an addiction. I guess I’ve never truly had an addiction. Or one at least that consumes your mind and your body, making you only think about that one thing. My grandmother began smoking at the age of 16, maybe give or take a year. She is now 82 years old. That’s a long life to live with an addiction that strong. Her body is failing her. It’s failing her because she’s poisoned it. She’s done this to herself. She’s made herself into skin and bones. She’s made her body prisoner to the oxygen that keeps her alive. She’s made herself mean. She’s made herself sad. She’s made her life, whatever life she has left, unenjoyable.
I am mad. I am sad. I just want to know why. I want my old grandma back. The one who would sit on the porch and yell when a car is coming. The one who would watch me every weekend while my parents had work. The one who would have manicure days with me because I was the only girl in the family. The one who could just be there for me. She’s not the same now.
By the time my grandma turned 17 she already smoked 5,200 cigarettes. By the time my grandma turned 81 she had already smoked 338,000 cigarettes. The last cigarette she ever touched was the day before she went into the hospital. My grandmother has smoked many cigarettes in her lifetime. I’ve never smoked one, nor do I ever plan to. My grandmother will never smoke another cigarette. Not by choice. More because of life or death. Is it better to keep living a life you hate or end the life you’ve lived?
Life is beautiful. Why corrupt this one life we are given?
I bought my first pack of cigarettes. I felt dirty. I felt like I was going to get in trouble. I felt like people were judging me. I felt the need to explain my purpose of buying those cigarettes to every person I came across. I felt this need to find the closest mountain and throw them off the side of the cliff. I feel weird with them in my possession. I know they aren’t going to automatically light themselves and force me to start smoking. They aren’t alive, your mind forces you to pick up the cigarette and put it in your mouth. But it’s an all-consuming feeling. It gives me anxiety thinking about them sitting on my shelf in my room. It makes me mad at the world. It makes me mad at myself. It makes me feel guilty. By the time my grandma was 17 she had already bought 260 packs of cigarettes. By the time my grandma was 81 she had already bought 21,060 packs of cigarettes.
I bought one.