I liked to think of it as cancer prevention.

I discovered my mom smoked cigarettes when I was in second grade. My parents were in the midst of their divorce and my dad thought it would be awesome to drop that bomb on me. I say “drop that bomb on me” because, as he explained, everyone who smoked cigarettes was going to die of lung cancer. To make matters worse, her flavor of choice was menthols. My dad said menthols leave little crystals in your lungs, which rip them and cause internal bleeding. (He was seriously trying to scare the crap out of me.) When I confronted my mom about her apparent long-term suicide plan, she informed me that she had smoked since the age of 15 and was the picture of health, therefore proving my dad was misinformed on the whole cancer thing.

At the tender age of 8, I decided my dad was correct and my mom was in denial. I made it my personal mission to stop my mom’s cigarette addiction. I liked to think of it as cancer prevention. When I had the good fortune to come across those nasty boxes of Benson & Hedges Menthols, I would “accidentally” bend the boxes in half, causing every cancer stick inside to break. When Plan A wasn’t working, I moved on to Plan B. This included hiding the cigarettes in places she would never find them. I wasn’t a fan of Plan B, because I was always afraid some other poor soul would find them, celebrate with a smoke, and thus jump on the bandwagon to their eventual demise. Plan C made me the most nervous but yielded the best results. It consisted of “accidentally” throwing the cigarette cartons away. You see, since she was habitually “losing” packs of cigarettes, she started buying them via carton. What a sad waste of cash when those babies disappeared!

I eventually fessed up to Plans A through C. She wanted to beat the snot out of me, but couldn’t bring herself to it because she realized I was doing it out of love.

Over the years, my mom tried to stop countless times. Every method failed. She would inevitably be sucked back in. She even downgraded from Benson & Hedges to Virginia Slims. Then, in June 2006, she came to my church and asked my pastor to pray for her. I believe God supernaturally intervened, because I’m pleased to report that not only has she been cigarette-free since that day, but she hasn’t even WANTED a cigarette! This is nothing short of a miracle for her.

My mom’s only complaint is that when she stopped smoking, she gained some weight. But you know what? I’d rather her be a bit more cuddly than sounding like Mrs. Roboto via a voice box on her way to the grave.

me & Mom (when she used to hide her smoking addiction)

me & Mom (cigarette-free for 2.5 years and counting)