by Brenana

Created on: June 09, 2008

Where has the person who started this topic been? Everywhere you go someone has a cigarette in his or her mouth. You can't take a walk in the park or go to the movie theater with out a cloud of cigarette smoke engulfing you at some point. Almost every store has a wide selection of cigarettes for you to choose from. Buying them is like buying a death warrant. "Would you like to slowly kill yourself? We have many options to choose from to make this happen." Sorry if I go a little over board on this topic, but I've seen it's effects with my own eyes and I know that yes indeed, people do still buy cigarettes.

My grandpa was an active smoker all his life. I don't know when or why he started, but by the time I came around, he had a cigarette in his shirt pocket wherever he went. His car smelled like smoke and so did he, but I loved him with my whole heart. When my brother and I were little, he loved to tease us. When we fell he'd say "oh no, is the ground hurt!" He had cheesy nicknames for all of his grandchildren that I'll never forget. He loved to tell stories and had an amazing memory, remembering even the smallest details from the "old days".

A few years ago, the effects of his nicotine addiction started show. He had to move out of his cabin in the mountains to our house in the city where the air wasn't as thin. By that time, the grandpa I knew was slowly disintegrating before our eyes. He moved into an apartment a little while later, by then needing an oxygen tank. Soon after he was diagnosed with lung cancer, and started treatments. Now he was starting to look even less like the grandpa I knew. His hair turned white and whispy before falling out all-together, and he was so weak he needed a wheel chair to get around. He even acted different, although occasionally a little peak of his old self would show through. The treatments got rid of the cancer, but he was still addicted to the cigarettes and he was still getting worse. He was moved to an assisted living home where we visited him occasionally. Whenever I went, I couldn't help be think this wasn't the grandpa I knew. He wasn't supposed to smoke at this place, but many times, people found cigarettes hidden throughout his room. It was an ongoing battle, but eventually my mom and her siblings gave up, letting him do what he wanted. The events after that are all a blur. An e-mail telling me while I was in Texas that he had cancer again, his move to a hospice home, and then my parents' faces as they broke the news to me that he was gone.

We went to the funeral. It was closed casket, which I was thankful for. Not because I didn't want to see a dead body, but because I didn't want to see the body that was inside. They called it my grandpa but I knew it wasn't.

I know that was all a little off topic, but in the end it's an example that yes, people do still buy cigarettes. I would do anything to stop it, to make them disappear off the face of the earth forever, but I do not know how. I can only hope and pray that someday we all wake up and realize there is no up side to them. I'm waiting for the day when I can say no one buys cigarettes anymore.

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