Dinner on the Table at 6

Over the years we have all heard of the warnings and dangers of smoking. Smoking started to be banned in hospitals, government buildings, workplaces, and even airplanes. What is up with that....you are in the air in an enclosed metal tube and if you sat in the back of the plane you could smoke! And I am sure none of that smoke drifted to the nonsmoking seats in front of you! Just as the imaginary line in a restaurant kept the smoke from the smoking section floating over the the nonsmoking table next to it. Well at least in later years they started separating the sections into different rooms.
I grew up in a house with parents who smoked. As I grew older I had a choice and I didn't like to be around it. I realize it is an addiction and hard to kick. As a nurse I have seen the consequences of smoking on a patients health. It was hard to see patients with emphysema and COPD who came in hardly able to breathe and struggling to get a breath of air. I wondered what the future would bring to those I loved who had continued to ingest the toxins of tobacco.
My mother quit smoking in 1994 but my daddy continued. I also had a brother and brother-in-law who quit. Kudos to them!! Sadly I began to see the effects of smoking take hold to those who had fed this addiction for more than a half century. First the shortness of breath, the coughing, the need for inhalers, the oxygen dependency, the dreaded diagnosis.......
In 6 months my mom, my dad, and a good friend.....also a nurse, lost their battle in the fight that ravaged their lungs and through the years determined their destiny.
Many cities today are fighting to become smoke free and want to be able to go into public areas and not be exposed to secondhand smoke. But I also know that those who have this addiction have rights too and we have to be tolerant of their rights. I can see clearly now that smoking is not going away but I hope we will become wiser and see the effects of these toxins and change our destinies to live and breath longer and healthier.