Breathe…Standing up against Corporate Tobacco

From Lucreshia with SHIFT Minnesota…

When I think of the pain that is caused by corporate tobacco I think of my mother, who has smoked cigarettes for longer than I’ve been alive. I can remember so many times when she vowed to be quitting and she tried, had the gum and the patch for a while and now she has emphysema. I wept when she told me the diagnosis, made ocean puddles knowing that while my mother was losing her breath they would be gaining fortunes. She would squeeze out her last pennies for a pack and sigh with relief at her first morning’s puff; oh the addiction that they do and I would wonder how can anyone love something so smelling. The marriage has been a long thirty five years; the last phone conversation we had I told her it was time to leave; she can’t keep doing all the giving. Her breath to her last sense/cents enough is enough. I told her that even if dinner’s turkey is cold, she knows she can no longer follow it with a smoke. I stand up against corporate tobacco because I love my mother and she needs to breathe.

~Lucreshia