Using Parental Love to do Good for You

My father used his father’s love to quit smoking.  My parents lived in the time of everyone smoking in order to be sophisticated.  His parents never approved of his smoking and always urged him to stop.  When my father was 52 (1977) and divorced from my mom, his father took him out on his boat into Sarasota Bay.  My father’s father brought a bottle of whiskey and couple of pounds of cheddar cheese.  My father stayed out there on Sarasota Bay for three days.  His father said, “every time you want a cigarette, go take a bite of cheese and a sip of whiskey.”   When they stepped back onto the dock, his father said to him “don’t ever pick a cigarette up again.”

That three day trip onto the water was what my father needed to quit smoking.  He clearly remembered and spoke of how much his father loved him.  My father wanted me to stop smoking, but he never preached or proselytized about it.  He thought that I would get around to quitting.  I devised a way to keep people from preaching to me about smoking.  I told everyone that I would quit when I turned 52, just like my father did.

In the meantime, my mother passed away when she was 67, her final heart attack was in the intensive care unit and the hospital staff tried very hard to save her.  My father, who was 70, steadfastly supported us through our heartbreak.  Daddy lived on and did not pass away until he was 82.  I always thought that we got those extra 15 years from dad because he quit smoking and mom did not.

Inevitably, I turned 52.  I’ll tell you, I was shocked when I did.  I did not realize that getting older would happen to me!  It put me in mind of something my dad had told me years ago.  My father said that he was looking in the mirror and he couldn’t believe that he had aged.  He said that inside, he felt no different, he was still the same person that he had always been and it was a mystery to him, how his body kept changing.

I used the love of my father to make the final commitment to quit smoking after 30 years of smoking.  I chose to quit smoking by midnight the day before my 52nd birthday.  Luckily, I had the love of my (now) husband to keep me on course and to get me through those first 3 days and then beyond.

Later, I chose an elaborate talisman to bring magic to my decision.  I am left handed, which I believe came from my mother.  When my mother was a child, she began her life left handed, but the said the nuns would slap her hand and tell her it was the work of the devil to be left handed.  She learned, the hard way, to be right handed.  It was symbolic of her times that her natural state was punished and she was force-formed into something that she was not.  I love my mother deeply and mourned her loss endlessly.  I had my mother’s birth initials tatooed on my left wrist.  I reasoned that I wanted the extra 15 years of life that my father got and I hoped that by seeing my mother’s initials on the wrist of my left hand – the hand I used to smoke cigarettes – I would always remind myself that I really want that extra 15 years of life.