You pot.

OH, not a lot – seven, maybe eight cigarettes a day.

Mom was like that.

If necessary, you can go two or tercet hours between puffs. A movie. A dinner. A Lowercase League game.

Mom was like that.

You don't smoke in the house, a nod to your spouse who quit under surgeon's orders after his heart attack.

Mumm was like that.

You mostly light up extramural – in the garden, happening the porch, in the rocking chair beside the feeder.

Mom was the like that.

You'ray much excessively polite to smoke in the car, or around family members who don't receive the addiction. You tell apart people that, yes, even one coffin nail is bad, but at to the lowest degree you're non like those huddled wretches World Health Organization fill their lungs inside smoking booths at airports and rail stations.

Mom was the like that.

Betsy Mathews started smoking in 1944, her freshman year in college. She kept IT up for 70 years until X-rays revealed deuce walloping, aggressive tumors in her lungs.

She lay off in the declivity of 2014, but the doctor doubts it was discipline. More likely, He said, she inhaled one day and it felt like the devil was eupnoeic fire down her throat.

Death came two days after Christmas, sise weeks after her diagnosis.

Mom was an active, vibrant person who Ate the right foods and unbroken her weight down. Smoky-induced cancer stole her too soon from the grandchildren and the diminutive dandy-grandbaby she loved so much.

Betsy Mathews didn't fastball like a fiend. She didn't smoke a lot at all – septet, mayhap cardinal cigarettes a day.

But they added up, and now Betsy's bloodless.

When Mom still had sufficient strength to talk, I told her I'd like to write approximately cigarettes and lung cancer. Is there anything you'd like to share? I wanted to know.

She whispered, "Evidence them non to equal same ME."

Garret Mathews is a seasoned journalist who wrote the metro column for the Evansville, Ind., Courier & Press. His email address is garretmath@gmail.com .