“Good morning folks, just about 38 minutes until we land in the Sunshine State. Flight attendants, please prepare for arrival.”
The captain’s voice startled me. I’d been in a misty haze of sorrow and forced fa-la-la-la-las since I learned the news about Dad.
I rubbed my eyes, looked up, and saw the no smoking sign lit up and glaring at me from the seat back in front of me. Of course every plane has had that symbol and phrase plastered throughout its body since the early 80s, but today, it punched me right in the gut.
I knew the sign wasn’t really for me. I wasn’t jonesing for a cigarette, and I don’t smoke. My Dad did. And maybe, if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be flying to Florida trying to save him. If only not smoking had been that simple for him.
My Dad. I loved that man to my core and the thought of losing him stung like a swarm of bees. The first man who ever loved me smoked too much, for too long, and was dying. Stupid cigarettes. Stupid cancer. The cigarettes kindled the fire, but it was the cancer treatment that was burning his house down. That awful disease was coursing through his body, and the treatment made him too weak to fight any longer.
As I sat there in seat 14-B, I wondered how many times he’d seen that no smoking sign in his everyday life and thought, Man, I wish it were that simple.
Dad, like many, smoked because of the relief it provided. Sure, experts call it addiction, but those little white sticks gave him comfort in some small way. Comfort to cope after his father passed. Comfort when the depression hit. Comfort while raising two daughters, through divorce, and ironically, comfort to cope with his cancer diagnosis, which eventually forced him to quit. Everyone has a vice, and that was his. That, and he grew up in the 50s and 60s, when smoking wasn’t just cool, it was culture.
Still, that morning with just under an hour until I was with him, the no smoking sign irritated me and made me want to scream, “I know! We know! And he knew too, and now it’s too late!”
When I finally saw him, I knew there was little to no hope left, but I didn’t give up easily. I read to him, laughed with him, sat with him, prayed for him, and asked him to hold his little girl one last time. I comforted him more than any cigarette ever could.
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