It's not cancer

My mother got good news from her doctor. Thank goodness, the business with her throat has NOT resulted in cancer. I am so relieved … and grateful. My concern now, of course, is that since she doesn't have cancer now, she will believe this means smoking hasn't harmed her and there is no need to quit.

I have never been a smoker, so I simply do not understand how such a filthy, smelly, expensive habit can be so pleasurable that she's willing to risk her life for it. I realize that women of my mother's generation began smoking so they could look sophisticated, like Lauren Bacall. But we have known the hazards of smoking since the 1960s. She has had decades to quit. Yet she can't/won't.

In fairness to her, I must report that she has gone from a pack/day to just 3 or 4 cigarettes a day. But over the space of a year, that's more than 1,200 cigarettes, with smoke and carcinogens traveling down her poor old esophagas. Yet she won't quit. I find this unutterably sad.

Oh well. I realize that what I am dealing with here is really not unique. Coping with our parents' mortality is something we will all have to face. And I imagine it's just this crappy for everyone.