A Loving Little Ode
She started smoking in her teens
At a time when it was still considered glamorous and cool
She smoked through two marriages and divorces
Four kids from birth on up, losing one along the way
She smoked through her role as a housewife
And even into her new vocation of nurse
In my 40th year, she would have difficulty breathing
And go to the emergency room to be diagnosed with mild
emphysema
She quit smoking then and there and never looked back
Two years later, she still had breathing problems
Two years later, an x-ray showed a lung mass the size of a
large orange
That wasn’t there two years before
Squamous cell carcinoma of the lung
Also known as smoker’s cancer
She had surgery on April Fool’s Day
She had radiation
She had chemo
None of it mattered, the cancer started to spread
She became unable to breathe on her own
And found herself tethered to a machine to do it for her
Until she chose
And her wishes were obeyed
Not to go back on the machine once off it
Her last day and a half were the longest of my life
And likely hers, too
On a morphine drip to ease her way
She succumbed
Respiratory failure and arrest secondary to pneumonia and
lung cancer
Were the words on her death certificate that medically summed
up
Her five months from diagnosis to passing
They did not sum up the life of the courageous woman
Who fought and lost the final battle of her life
At the age of 65
Mother, nurse, artist and a thousand things more
She taught me so much in life
Words cannot convey it all
Or my gratitude for everything she did for me in our time
together
Fifteen years later
She is still loved and missed
And, hey, Mom?
Cigarettes are still my enemy.
Lauren
Swartzmiller
08/05/2013
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