Ode To a Dying Smoker

You came into my life, before I was born. How could I know, our relationship was to be forlorn? I knew in my heart, I should just walk away. Time I was thirteen, you were here to stay. I thought it was cool, never going by all the rules. I was the hippest, never no ones fool. You were with me everywhere I would go. New friends, you would get to know. Dad was in the Service, often we would move. Long as I had you, I could find a "New Groove". You went with me everywhere that I went. Dad, died on his Birthday, he was fifty-one and Heaven sent. I made a promise to him, one I never kept. I should have listened, but now I regret. Mom died young, not even a year later, from secondhand smoke. I thought at the time, that had to be a joke. I now have C. O. P. D., I do not want the people to see... Me, stuck on an oxygen machine, with a forty foot hose. Thinking how bad the Tobacco Companies and smoking, really have got to go! Comments: C.O.P.D. is Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) This is a revised version of a poem I wrote a few years ago. I guess with this I want to get across how Smoking takes it's tole on families. This is my true story, I hope some can see what it does and can stop the madness. Judy