PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

I remember those early Sunday breakfasts. Barely 8 in the morning and you could see Auntie Lily having a smoke before the coffee got to the table. Marlboro, camel, lucky strikes or salem. She didn't care about the brand; she simply loved to smoke. Her solution to every problem was to have a cigarette... it was a part of her. She had a whole pack every Saturday at the family dinners. I just do not have a single memory of her right hand without a cigarette. Even when she finished running (and she ran every day) she had one. "I'm not an addict, I just love the feeling", she used to say. Oh, but how mad did my auntie get when she saw my cousins smoking. "Hey you little rascals! Aren't you too young to do that?". I guess there is no appropriate age to smoke. Auntie Lily just couldn't quit. She tried everything: psychologists, nicotine patches, mouthwashes, and nothing ever worked. A couple packs of cigarettes were always in her purse. I remember Auntie Lily's favorite cigarette: the one after lunch. She used to eat until she was very full just to enjoy a delightful cigarette after her meal. "I feel how all my blood goes to the digestive system. I'm starting to get a little dizzy". Auntie Lily just loved everything about cigarettes, and they never seemed to deteriorate her health. You never heard Auntie Lily coughing or being tired after a long run. I was starting to believe that they weren't bad for your health. Only 2 years before her departure I was convinced that cigarettes would destroy anyone sooner than later. Cigarettes may have been one of the greatest pleasures in her life, and paradoxically her greatest destruction. She died old. We all knew she was in her last days, being a 78 year-old woman with a lot of respiratory issues. We all knew she was about to leave. We all knew that she stopped smoking because she feared death. Seems like the human body does not resist a million cigs. Everyone will remember Auntie Lily with the smoke going out of her beautiful smile. She had the whitest smile among all the smokers in the world. Even though she was a compulsive smoker, she really cared about her health considering sports, food and meditation. I laughed every time I saw her with an apple on her left hand and a cigarette on her right hand. You could see her smoking in the half time of a basketball game. I could guess Auntie Lily is lighting a cigarette right now... no matter in what kind of afterlife she might be.