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My mother's cigarettes
My mother's cigarettes
When I remember about my childhood there are many blurry images, many other are gray, and the rest can be just the smoke of her cigarettes. I can picture her taking out one, two, three, even maybe the whole pack. Of course, she didn’t want us to remember her as an addict, maybe my mother never thought we would. But the truth is that whenever my sister and I think about her the only thing coming to our minds is her being all alone in a corner inhaling all her pain. It can be raining, or maybe the sun can be burning in flames your skin, the day can be sad or maybe you don’t know the weather nor the mood of the day and you’re indoors ignoring the world, just choose one and she’ll be there smoking. That’s what and addict do, right? No matter the place nor the time, it must be that way. Now that my sister and I are adults and we can see the reality clear as crystal, we can spend from twenty minutes to up to three hours trying to convince her to quit it. She decided to ignore us but we decided to keep pushing her. Words not always work, extreme measures are required in extreme situations, aren’t they? Well, never throw away a whole new pack of cigarettes or wet the few ones remaining. Maybe I should have kept that in mind, she got seriously mad when I did so. She always gets mad. I can’t remember a time when she smoked and smiled at the same time, does anyone even do that? Don’t get me wrong you folks, she isn’t a depressing human being, but she isn’t a cheerful one neither. She does smile occasionally; I wonder if she’s even happy. She must be. She has a good job, a good husband, two exceptional daughters, one eccentric son and a whole new pack of Light Malboros. She can count on those just as much as she can count on us, but why does she rely on them instead? Is it stress? Is it sadness? Is it just the addiction? She can never answer these questions but with a good and refreshing “is none of your business”. But let me tell you this, it is my damn problem too. Try living the day-to-day being twelve years old and asked if you were smoking, shame on you. Shame on your addiction mom. But who am I to judge her demons? I have my very own, we all do. I’ll just pretend I cannot see them, well, at least not those that aren’t mine.
