fashion clothes

I spent a good long time yesterday pouring out my soul in a piece that may never be published. I do that a lot, actually. Sometimes they get edited and posted. Sometimes I just hit the delete button and never look back. Sometimes I enlist the help of trusted friends for guidance and wisdom.

Sometimes I write it just because I need to get the words out, like the proverbial letter scratched out in anger and frustration and sadness then set aflame and tossed ceremoniously in a wastebasket.

I think this one needs to be set on fire.


These things, the hardest ones to write about, sometimes I am not ready to let them out yet. Not here, anyway. I try to always be cognizant of the affect my words might have on others. Even if it will carry some benefit for someone out there reading, I have to worry first about protecting myself, protecting my children. I don't have to protect my parents anymore, but I still need to shield my kids.

This is one of the pieces that could bring with it ramifications. Not horrible ones, but some nonetheless. It contains too many of my truths in one place. Too much of my past. Things I still haven't really worked through myself.

Maybe someday I will be ready. I don't know. This one might stay away from the public forever.

There is so much that you all don't know about me. This piece I wrote, it is one of the parts of me that even most of my best friends in the world don't know about. One of the things that I still carry shame and regret about, though I am trying to forgive myself.

Even with all that, the lesson it all taught me was it was one of the most important I have learned in my life thus far, one that I carry with me every day, one that keeps me writing about the things that people don't always want to read about. A lesson that literally took me twenty years to learn.

I don't always want to write about the hard stuff, but I do it anyway.

Sometimes I don't really have a choice. It comes out or it eats away at my soul.

Making people uncomfortable is my thing, after all. I talk about the truths and the realities that we would rather live without seeing. The things we would rather deny. The things we would rather ignore. The things we would rather rationalize.

Sometimes, though, even I can't do it.

I can't hit the publish button.

I had coffee with someone new yesterday, someone that I met through this bizarre online world, someone that began the day a stranger and ended the day a friend.

She could see it.

My internal conflict, almost constant in my head. Sometimes it comes out here. Sometimes I'm elusive about it all, sometimes I lay it all out for the world to see. The conflict, though, is almost always there.

Thus is the life of a writer. 

If you do it long enough, you end up writing about all of the things. The menial, the mundane, the boring and bland. You write about the important, the significant, the controversial, the real. You write about the truth and the lies, the pain and the loss.

Then there are all the things you keep inside. The stories untold, the secrets kept, the times that you want nothing more than to shout it from the rooftop, but you won't allow it.

You refrain.

I sense that the writers out there will know exactly what I'm talking about, particularly the ones who have been at this long enough to have been sitting where I am right now, staring at the words running across the screen as they come screaming out.

The writers will know what I mean when I talk about the absolute therapeutic value in letting the words out, even just to ourselves, even if no one else ever sees them.

The writers out there will understand what I mean when I say that the words just need to be set on fire.

Okay you guys, there is a lot to cover this week, so I won't bother with an introduction. Off we go.


News That Isn't News
Welcome to the USA, land of fluffy stories on television cleverly disguised as news. I won't say which network it is, but one of the locals has started running an ad that says something along the lines of bringing you the news that you want to see. 

Well. Um. That's not news. News is news, actual reporting of events and stories and relevance. It is the good, the bad and ugly, even if the people at home get uncomfortable. The role of the news isn't to make us happy, to keep us content and complacent, to tell us what we want to hear. It is supposed to provide us with information we can't get anywhere else.

Instead, these days, to get the actual news stories that are important, not just locally but on a global level, we have to actively seek it out. I can't count on the networks, any of them, to do solid objective reporting anymore. It seems that everything is spun and then either sugarcoated or sensationalized, depending on whether this news channel just wants to make us feel better or wants to get us riled up.

That isn't news. What the hell happened?

I shouldn't have to watch BBC to get real news.

The Biggest Loser Drama
I'll preface what I am about to say by telling you all (again) that I avoid almost every reality show currently being produced. I like writing and scripts and can't stand the genre of reality shows for the most part. The Biggest Loser has always been my least favorite of them all for the simple fact that weight shouldn't be a game show.

We have a nation with issues when it comes to weight and nutrition and exercise at both ends of the spectrum. Rising obesity rates, recess and physical education being cut at school, increasing rates of preventable disease on one hand, eating disorders on the other. I've been on both ends. It's not fun either way, let me tell you.

The show, in my opinion, has always sent the wrong message. It shames the obese, embarrasses them on public television, tempts them with bountiful spreads of unhealthy food, forces them to workout for hours on end, then weighs them weekly to see whether they get to stay on the show or not. It's sick, honestly, and gives people the wrong idea about what healthy weight loss is supposed to be like. Most people don't have staffs preparing food, have personal trainers screaming at them, have entire teams rooting for or against them or are subjected to weekly humiliation.

Granted, contestants sign up for it, but most of them do it out of desperation having tried to lose the weight for years. That isn't exactly my definition of total consent. But I digress. I hate the show. But that isn't why I'm talking about it. I'm talking about it because of Rachel Frederickson, you know, the contestant who lost "too" much according to most of the commentary out there.


Here's the thing, America...isn't she exactly what the show is supposed to hold out as the example? If we are going to be pissed about people judging her when she was 260 pounds, then we can't hate on her when she is 105 either. Is she healthy now? Was she healthy then? I don't know, and quite honestly it is none of my business. I'm not her doctor. I'm not her.

We should be worrying about one thing when it comes to diet and exercise: health. When I say that we should be worrying about health, that includes mental health as well. Along those lines, we should recognize the truth that far more people in this country tie their value as human beings to the number on that scale and shows like this one only feed that beast, and that's not healthy at all, regardless of what the number is.

Leave her alone. While you are at it, leave the fat people alone too. Seriously.

The Worst Parents Ever?
You guys know that I'm not one for judging other people. I literally spend time every day reminding myself not to do it. Then a case like this one floats past my eyes online and I can't fight it anymore.

Alexa Linbloom died after being removed from life support last month. Her cause of death was acute water/fluid intoxication. She was five, and had been forced by her father and stepmother to consume more than two liters of grape soda and water in less than two hours as a punishment for taking her stepmother's soda.

Her body, literally, couldn't hold all the fluid. Her brain swelled too much and she died. They have both been arrested and charged with first degree murder, neglect and abuse. 

The Racist Olympic Cauldron Lighter
Here's something super fun! Just kidding.

So, the woman who lit the cauldron for the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics is named Irina Rodnina. She's won the gold medal three times and is a member of the public chamber in Russia. She also tweeted this insanely racist picture of President Obama in September.


She removed it almost immediately, but never apologized, instead claiming freedom of speech.

Please tell me you are laughing ironically right now.

Because the freedom of speech absolutely protects writers there, or protesters, or anyone who has a public opinion about equal rights, or anyone who is fighting against oppression. (please tell me you know I am being sarcastic. Please.)

Speaking of Russia, there is so much about it that we are oblivious to here. A friend shared this post from a native Russian about how misguided the media is, obsessing about the conditions in the village but ignoring the real issues present every day for the people who live there. It is most definitely worth a read.

It'll Be News When An Athlete Comes Out Until It Isn't Anymore. Period.
Michael Sam came out in a press conference Sunday. The defensive lineman from the University of Missouri has entered into the NFL draft this year. He is set to be the first openly gay man drafted in the league.

Why is this news? Because it is. The NFL is one of the last bastions of homophobia in our society, one of the places where you aren't supposed to be gay, you aren't supposed to talk about it, and god forbid, you aren't supposed to bring it into the locker room. Gasp!

As soon as the news came out and stories started to roll out, the comments started to pour in.

"When will it be newsworthy that I am white and straight?"

"This is news why?"

"He needs to read the Bible. Being gay is a sin."

This is news because he's doing it when he doesn't have to, when many of the reporters and teammates already knew. He is taking a huge risk and a huge leap of faith with a statement like this publicly going into the draft, because like it or not, this will probably affect which teams want him now. It's news because he's the first one to go into the draft as an openly gay player. It's news because he is breaking down barriers.

It will stop being news when it's not news anymore.

It will stop being news when people of all sexual orientations are accepted and don't have to feel compelled to come out anymore.

It will stop being news when sexual orientation isn't used as a basis to discriminate against people or deny rights to them.

It will stop being news when people are judged on their abilities alone, not who they love.

It will stop being news when it's not news anymore, and not one second before that moment.

Deal with it.

Snaps.

Has it only been three years?

Has it already been three years?

So much has happened that it has to have been that long since the last time he was with us, since the morning we spent around his bed, holding his hand, waiting, watching. So much that it must have been that long or longer even.

In some ways it seems like decades have passed.

In others, it seems like he was just here.

This is the first time that this day has arrived when my mind hasn't been occupied somewhere else, worrying about her, my mother, nervously wondering how she would cope with it all this time around. The first time without the phone calls and messages left and awkward exchanges and wondering if she really was okay and her never being even a little bit concerned about me and her minimizing whatever I was feeling because she always felt more, hurt more, needed more.

This is the first time that I can grieve for me.

Without the distractions.

Without being worried about someone else.

Without being told that my grief wasn't big enough.

It's calming, actually, this place that I am in now.

It still hurts, but the edges of the pain are dulled a bit. The memories come now and they wash over me and leave me with a smile on my face rather than the heartache they used to leave behind.

I have learned a lot on this journey through life without him. He taught me so many lessons, some of which I did not even realize at the time. Some of them are still coming back to me now, all these years later, like the one about spilling the milk. 

He taught me to be strong, to be resilient. He taught me to speak my mind, to lay out my arguments so well that people couldn't find the holes in them. He taught me to love music, to love the time I spend behind the wheel in the car, to love with my whole heart. He was the first to call me a writer, and I know he'd be prouder of me right now than anyone else could ever be.

I miss him. I miss him every day.

As I begin a new journey in my life, a familiar one, but one that I'm embarking on this time without him, my heart aches.

It hurts for all the things he won't be here to see, for all the moments without him. It hurts for the times he won't share with us.

Then a part of me knows that he is still with us.

He lets me know from time to time.

I have a feeling I'll be seeing a lot of him in the coming years.

I will welcome those moments. I will drink them in when they come. I will let the memories in, I will learn the lessons, I will be grateful for the chance to have been his little girl.


I miss you, Dad.

I love you.

Last night, my husband and I went to see Gravity. I've been wanting to see it since it came out, but we don't get many opportunities to see movies without singing cartoons in them, so we have to plan accordingly. Thankfully this is still in theaters, and allowed me to check off one of the nominated films.


One of these years I will see them all before the Academy Awards. One of these years. Probably not anytime in the near future...but it's good to have a goal, right?

Anyhow, we went to see it. He found a theater locally still showing it in IMAX 3-D. Apparently, when we haven't seen a grown-up movie in a while, we need to overcompensate. I was a bit nervous since IMAX movies tend to make me nauseous, and I did have to close my eyes a few times, but I made it through the movie without running from the theater, so I will call it a win.

The rest of this post will contain spoilers, so if you haven't seen it yet and will yell at me for ruining something, please stop reading. 

The rest of this post may seem to ramble a bit. I apologize in advance. There is just a lot going through my head after seeing it. I laughed a bit after it ended, remembering all the posts I had seen when it was first released questioning the science of the film. Are there pieces that might not hold water? Of course...but at the end of the day, you have to remember that it's a movie. A stunningly gorgeous one, at that.

Speaking of which, I knew what the movie was about before we saw it, I even knew about the background of the main character and how it ended. Still, nothing was spoiled.

The Loss of a Child
When it first came out, a dear writer friend of mine went to see it in an attempt to escape her reality. After all, that is what movies are supposed to be for, right? As it turned out, though, it was anything but an escape and instead became a reminder of where she is, where she has been.

Dr. Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock, lost her four year old daughter in a freak accident years before the story in the film takes place. At some point, the information about her is revealed, and I can't even begin to imagine what a blow that would have been for Mary Tyler Mom, my friend who also lost her daughter when she was four, though to cancer instead of an accident. She wrote about her experience with the film here in an attempt to prevent other parents in similar situations from being blindsided with the background story. 

The loss of her daughter, as you come to see during the film, was a large part of why Dr. Stone was who she was then, why she did what she did, why she felt comforted by the silence of space, why she was afraid to die but welcomed it anyway, and finally, what gave her the motivation to fight to survive.

It's profound, this emotional struggle that you see play out on the screen. I would think it would be moving for anyone. For those who have lost children, exponentially more real.

I anticipated that seeing the film would probably tap into my anxiety issues, but knowing that going in seemed to help. The scene when she is untethered and spinning uncontrollably further and further into space was abjectly terrifying. I don't think any other word could possibly do it justice.

To be so helpless, to know that you are being pushed away from life and that you are powerless to do anything to stop it is something that I've only truly experienced once in my life - in the moments right after I was told that my baby had died. It is something visceral and raw and it takes the breath from you and squeezes it out.


I'm glad that I knew about that part of the movie going into it. I don't know that I would have been able to watch it otherwise.

Death Can Be Beautiful
George Clooney's character, Matt Kowalski, is a veteran astronaut on his final trip when tragedy strikes. His final moments, when all you can hear is his voice as he drifts further and further away, were hard to hear. The words, hard to process. In those last moments, he knew what was coming, he was well trained for the inevitable and he seemed to face it without fear or hesitation. Instead he turned on his favorite music and admired the beauty around him while he still could.

It was beautiful.

Death can be beautiful, which is something we refuse to see in our society. Though almost none of us will ever be astronauts that meet our end drifting though space, our ends will come. The only thing certain in life is death, and yet it is something that too many of us fear. Because of that fear, we often find ourselves desperately trying to save people at the end. Life saving measures, surgeries, tubes, ventilators, all inflicting more pain but rarely saving anyone. And for what?


Death can be beautiful when it is welcome. When it is surrounded by love and peace and calm and friendship and family. I know this because it is how my father died. He was prepared, as much as he could have been, like this fictional man floating away. Enjoying what time he had left, and then letting go.

Fear and Courage
For almost the entire movie, the characters are in danger. Mortal, immediate danger. Though they are well trained, the fear is still there. The fear can still take hold. The fear does take over at times. Eventually, Dr. Stone fights through the fear and finds her inner strength.


What are we afraid of? It may not be something as overwhelming as an impending debris field, but is there something out there looming in the distance, keeping you on your toes?

Is it something that keeps you from doing what you should, what you must in order to not just survive, but thrive?

Can you power through the fear? Courage isn't about the absence of fear, not at all. It is about being afraid and doing it anyway.

Insignificance
Films like this one that include shots of the Earth from space, almost by definition, are supposed to make us ponder our place in the universe. Our smallness. Our insignificance.

When life overwhelms me, I try to remember that I am but one of over 7 billion people on this planet. My problems are inconsequential when compared to what most of those 7 billion people have to face every single day. What is huge and even life altering for me is just a drop in the bucket of humanity.

Do you ever just think about that? The hugeness of the universe? How little we know?

Do you ever stare up at the night sky and wonder what it all means? If there are planets full of life out there pondering the same thing?

I do. All the time. I marvel at it. It humbles me, keeps me grounded.

It tells me that no matter how much I think I know, I really don't know anything. Seeking knowledge only makes me want to seek more of it. The more I absorb, the more I realize how much more there is to know and understand the truth that I will never be able to learn it all.

Movies are for entertainment. They transport us somewhere we may never be able to visit, take us to a time and place far and away. They use lighting and images and music and sound to immerse us somewhere else entirely. Sometimes they take us all the way there just to bring us inward, to make us feel, to make us think.

The best movies do it all. They leave us asking questions, not just of the filmmakers, but of ourselves.

This?

One of those.

Yesterday was my birthday. Though it was one of those days that I legitimately needed several extra hours to get everything done and was running around all day, it was a good day. A really good day.

Probably the best birthday I've ever had.

There was no celebratory dinner. It was waiting in the crockpot when we got home from all the other things we had to do.

There was no cake. Which is fine, because I really don't like cake anyway. (Gasp! I know, right?)

There was no party. Unless you count the singing of Happy Birthday as we crammed chicken cacciatore into our mouths.

There was no hurrah. My youngest didn't even realize it was my birthday until last night.

And you know what? It was still awesome.

I resisted joining Facebook for a long time, telling myself (with real reason) that I didn't want to be on a social media site, that I didn't need to connect with classmates from decades ago, that I didn't need to be wasting my time there. I pushed it away because I was afraid I would like it, if I am just being honest with myself.

I eventually gave in and joined.

Over the years I have reconnected with people I never thought I would, forged friendships with people I never would have had the chance to, and met some of the nicest people I've never actually met.

Then there is this. Most of you came by way of Facebook.

All day yesterday, I received posts and messages from these people that live in my computer. I laughed at a few, teared up at others, was touched by everyone that took time out of their day just to write to me.

It's fairly fantastic, this internet thing.

A few times, though, I saw people posting memes and links to posts whining about the 10th anniversary Facebook movies. In case you don't know what they are, earlier this week, Facebook celebrated their 10th Anniversary. To thank their users, they created an app that generates a one minute look back video of your time on Facebook. The first posts you wrote and pictures you shared, the items that people interacted with the most, the things that some algorithm decided were worthy of being included in that little snippet of life.


Most people loved their video. Some didn't, usually because it included pictures of painful reminders, posts having to do with heartbreak or loss, people who aren't here anymore.

Even if people loved their own video, eventually the snark about everyone else's videos began. It seems in this world we can't ever just let people have their moment without making it about us, can we? We seem to think that our opinions are important enough to voice them, even at the expense of others.

If you don't want to make a video, fine. No one required you to do so. If other people do, leave them be. Chances are that video means something to them that you could never possibly understand.

My video made me cry. In it, pictures of my parents who are both gone now, of my babies when they were little. Images from some of the worst days in my life where I was trying to hold it together and smile for the camera. Others that show the moments when I started to emerge from the tunnel. When life turned around, when there was genuine joy again. Pictures of the things I love, the people I love, the things I am proud of.

My video was an absolutely accurate representation of what my life has been like, perhaps because I am absolutely authentic, even online.

The trouble with social media is that it's easy to portray ourselves as something other than who we really are. It's easy to get caught up in comparing yourself to the images everyone else puts out there. If you can take it for what it is, though, be real about who you are, and stop worrying so much about what everyone else is doing, it can be a truly beautiful thing.

First of all, let me just say thank you from the bottom of my heart for the response to the original post I wrote earlier this week about addiction.

I wanted to clear up a few things, answer a few questions and address a few issues in the wake of it. I wrote it initially because the words just needed to get out of my head. I've told quite a few people that I really don't even feel like I wrote it, I was just the person attached to the fingers that typed it out. It came from my soul.

The difficulty in writing something like this is that I wrote it for my own reasons, which are related to my own personal experiences with addiction in many different forms. I never wrote it thinking for even one second that it would go viral. It was not done to capitalize on the moment, it was not even a celebration of PSH as an actor, though I will miss his contributions to the industry. It was a response to the way people reacted. The assumptions made about him. The assumptions made not just about him, but about everyone out there struggling the same way he did.

It wasn't about him at all, really. It was about the addicts I have known and loved. It was about the people I have known, the struggles I have witnessed. The demons in my own head.

His death just forced all that to the surface for me.


There are a few things that I wanted to clarify, that I probably should have written more in depth about at the time but didn't either because I didn't think about it at the time, or I did and chose to try and condense my words.

The greatest of which is the issue of what causes addiction, something we may not ever have clear and convincing scientific evidence of. We see what we see, though. We observe what we observe. I did not state in the post that every case of addiction has mental illness as a precursor, though I believe many of them do. There will certainly be people who don't relate to it at all. It's not intended to be all-inclusive, nor would I ever presume that it could be.

There most certainly appears to be an element of genetics involved when it comes to addiction. Some people are just more inclined to be drawn toward drugs, alcohol, food, whatever it is. Some families seem to have clusters of addiction. Whether it is an actual issue of genes or just the force of habits and learned behaviors from a lifetime of living with and around other addicts, I can't say. I just know that some people have a predisposition to it.

I know this because I am one of them.

I walk the line.

I have been forthcoming about my personal issues in the past.

There are people who may not have that predisposition, who can use drugs socially, who can drink without hesitation, and it never causes a problem. For some of them, though, these people without the predisposition, they may find themselves addicted anyway simply because the item they use creates its own physical addiction.

Nicotine, heroin and cocaine are the ones that come to mind immediately. These drugs are inherently addictive and create dependence in people who might otherwise be able to fight it off, purely because of the chemical compounds involved and their effect on the body.

Along with all that, there is the underlying issue quite often of mental illness. I say this only because it has been the case in every single addict I have ever known, most commonly depression. In many cases, because of the stigma about mental illness in general, people are resistant to believe they have a problem, resistant to seek help, and in turn seek out ways to self medicate...which can lead them down the path of addiction.

Some of the comments left indicate that people misread my words. I never intended for anything in the post to be an absolution of responsibility on the part of the addict. Quite the opposite, in fact. Attempting to understand why people become addicts and why it is so hard for them to get clean doesn't equal helplessness at all. They are without a doubt the most essential piece of the puzzle. Without a desire to get better, without the determination to get up and fight the fight every single day, no amount of resources, no amount of support will ever make a difference.

Those of us who have been there understand that. Those of you out there who haven't been there should consider yourselves lucky. Honestly.

Do addicts choose to use? Yes, of course they do, at least initially. Once they are in it, though, the issue of choice isn't clear cut anymore, it's not cut and dried, it's not black and white. Some drugs mess with the messages in your head. Some drugs force your body to get more. It's not as simple as just deciding to stop, particularly for people with severe addictions that can only quit safely with the help of detox.

The physical aspect of addiction is only one piece, and most would argue, one of the most inconsequential, at least in the long run. The reason people relapse is precisely because addiction isn't just physical. It's bigger than that. It's more complicated than that.

Our mental health system isn't equipped to help addicts. Even where there are services available, the resources are usually lacking to help pay for it. Not all insurance covers rehab, for those people who even have insurance. One of the lesser discussed aspects of the Affordable Care Act is that all plans sold on the exchanges are required to include coverage for substance abuse.

This is huge, and might finally be a step in the right direction.

We need to do a better job for addicts in this country. We need to do a better job for all mental health conditions in general. We need to have a better understanding of the co-morbidity often present between them. We need to stop believing that drug use is simply a criminal issue.

Mostly, though, we need to remember what it's like to care about people.

We need empathy and compassion.

They, the addicts, need it maybe more than anyone else does.

Does that mean that I am claiming you should always be there, be subjected to abuse, throw money at treatment centers for people who refuse to try? Of course not. In all of this, you have to understand that all the help in the world won't help someone who doesn't want it, someone who isn't ready, someone who won't get up and fight every day.

You can't love them enough to fix them.

You can't love them enough to keep them clean.

You can't love them enough to make it all better unless they want it to be better.

It's a painful realization, one that I've had to come to before. It sucks backwards and forwards. You can only do what you can do until you can't do it anymore. Then you have to do what you have to do to protect yourself.

No one will fault you for that if they understand what it is like. Those who would can't possibly know.

Another of the topics I wanted to clarify a little here is the subject of religion, which is something mentioned quite often in the comments. I didn't talk about it because I am not a religious person. I am spiritual, but not within the confines of a religion per se. I have known addicts to get clean even without a belief in God. I have known people with all the faith in the world who didn't make it. My opinion is a simple one - whatever works for you, cling to it, but don't think that it will necessarily work for someone else. Each person has a different path, a different inspiration, a different reason.

I honor them all. I respect them all.

I think that is all the issues I wanted to clear up. I think. I'm probably missing something, but I can count on you all to let me know.

Again, thank you for sharing this important message.

Peace and strength to you all.

Yesterday was World Cancer Day.

This past Sunday, as I was watching the Superbowl, a commercial for World Cancer Day, paid for by Chevrolet came on the screen. I fought back most of the tears but couldn't hold them all. What I wouldn't give for one more drive with my Dad. He was a car guy. He taught me to be a car girl. Some of the best times I had with him in those last weeks were on a drive.


I was with him the last time he sat in the driver's seat...
the last time he gripped the steering wheel...
the last time he felt the accelerator grab...
the last time he rolled the window down...
the last time he shut the door...

Last week, the Surgeon General released a comprehensive report on the use and danger of tobacco over the past 50 years. Since the first report was issued, more than 20 million people in the United States have died from tobacco related illnesses. Smoking continues to decline, sitting at 16% of the population today. There are more former smokers than current ones here in the US now.

A week before the report was issued, Eric Lawson became the fourth Marlboro Man to die a tobacco related death, succumbing to COPD caused by a three pack a day habit stretching back decades.

Tomorrow is my birthday. That morning in 2011, though he was getting weaker by the moment, my father announced that we were going to breakfast to celebrate. He was the one dying, I was the one having the birthday, and he told me that it all seemed wrong because I'd given him the gift that year by coming to help him at the end. Around the table that morning, him and I, my mother (also gone now, in part because of cigarettes), my brother, his wife, their son and my virtually adopted brother. I had no idea it would be the last time. I had no idea he'd be gone four days later.

February 10th will mark three years here without him. Without his wisdom, his guidance, his love. Three years since I have heard his voice, his laughter. Three years.

My father didn't saddle up and ride off into the sunset.

Neither did The Marlboro Men.

I don't care what the ads promised.

They lied.

My father, these ad men, thousands more each year, all their lives ended too soon, ended painfully.

Gasping for air.

Quite often still addicted to the very thing killing them.

For my Dad, it was lung cancer that spread to his blood, his bones, his liver...and then everywhere.

The Marlboro Man was invented in the mid 1950's, when smoking was advertised to every man, woman and child as something sexy, something desirable, something social. The Marlboro Man was created as an advertisement for Philip Morris in an attempt to sell Marlboros, which were filtered cigarettes and at the time, considered feminine. The reason they started pushing the filtered cigarettes was a simple one, really...they knew that cigarettes were dangerous, they just mistakenly believed that filtered ones were safer. 

The tobacco companies knew cigarettes were dangerous then in the 1950's. They knew it before they created this advertising icon. They knew it before they packaged it, distributed it and sold it. They knew it before they told an entire generation of men that the only way to truly be rugged, manly men was to do it with a piece of paper containing addiction and poison rolled up between their lips.

The executives knew cigarettes were addictive before smokers and their families started suing the tobacco companies. They suppressed documents, they escaped liability in countless lawsuits claiming that cigarettes were safe, that they did not cause cancer, that the smokers assumed the risk anyway.

How that all wasn't deconstructed just doesn't make sense to me. If there was nothing dangerous, what exactly could the smokers be assuming the risk of? The companies themselves said their products were safe.

And an entire generation of smokers believed them.

By the time smokers realized just how dangerous smoking was, they were addicted. Hooked. Nicotine is as addictive as heroin and cocaine.

And the tobacco companies knew.

And they denied it anyway.

They denied it because they made money from their lies. They became rich at the hands of people crippled by addiction to a product they vowed was safe. They profited from sickness, from death, because even in their last days, most smokers can't quit.

The companies weren't able to completely escape liability in later cases and have been forced to pay out billions of dollars to compensate states for health care costs.

That won't bring my father back.

Nothing will.

If I sound angry, it's because I am.

I want to go on another drive with my father.

I want to sit around a breakfast table one more time.

I want to hear his laugh, see his smile, just one more time.

Most of the time, I am a writer who vigorously advocates for others, who tries to raise awareness, who shares stories, who exposes injustices.

Sometimes I'm just a girl who misses her Dad. 



I love you, Dad.

I miss you every day that goes by.

I miss you more right now.