Today I am babbling about freedom, rights and responsibilities from a personal perspective.
I’m 62 years and 4 months old. That’s the age my mother died. It took her a long time to do it, but she finally left her world of pain.
She died of lung cancer (spread all around), caused by a lifetime of tobacco use. She smoked through her pregnancies. She smoked while bottle feeding us Karo syrup or whatever poor people used to feed babies back then. She smoked in the car on every trip our family took. She smoked while cleaning the house, leaving long caterpillars of ash behind on the floor she’d vacuumed. She tried to hide her smoking. She’d smoke out her bathroom window. That led to the intake of our family room air conditioner. She smoked while on so much morphine that she didn’t see the burn holes in her polyester pajamas. It was her last pleasure. It was more important to her than her family or her own life.
I resented her for subjecting me and my family (especially my brother and dad) to her addictions. I wanted her love. She loved alcohol, pills, and tobacco more. Calling Dr. Freud!
I truly resented people who continued to smoke around me, knowing what my family had been through. What a relief when I could actually go to a restaurant or bar and not get sick from the smoke. What joy I found when my friends who were addicted started to only smoke outside, away from their children and elders.
I don’t blame the addicts; no one sets out to become addicted. But I sure am happy to see people behaving more responsibly about it. Sure, their freedom to smoke when and where they want to got taken away. And hey, not everyone they smoked around would eventually get sick. Not every smoker gets lung cancer, after all.
Nonetheless. Laws were passed and establishments made rules. Lots of people were pissed off, but they managed.
Today we have people who appear to care more for their right to potentially spread an extreme contagion more than they care for their families, friends, and communities. I hope it doesn’t take watching a loved one die because their lungs no longer work, like my family had to, to convince them otherwise.
Thoughts from me
Freedoms:
We’re free to drive cars, but not to run stop signs, speed, or go without lights after dark. We’re free to burn trash out in the country, but not when conditions are ripe for fire. We’re free to own guns, but not to shoot others just because it’s fun. We’re free to build a home, but not on someone else’s property. We’re free to worship as we want, but not to force others to do as we do. We’re free to love, as long as it doesn’t harm others. We’re free to hate, even in absence of good reasons to do so.
With freedom comes responsibility.
Note: I didn’t write this to judge you or anyone else. I am not telling you what to do. This is just to explain why I have strong reactions to things going on these days. People get to make their own choices. People have rights. With rights come responsibilities, though. It’s worth thinking about what responsibilities we all have to others.
The Hermits' Rest 
Re-read this. Most of us missed some outward showing of love from our parents. But they did love us and your Mom’s drugs were not more important than you all. She was doing the best she could with what she knew and what life had doled out to her. Still. That generation did most things right and I can still say I will have a hard time catching up to their goodness.
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I enjoyed your beautiful writing and accurate assessments. My mother expressed to me once I was a young adult how guilty she felt for all we were exposed to growing up. My mom and dad did quit smoking but I was grown up by that time, and she knew what we had endured, without knowing better, and without any power to change it. I was also a Karo syrup baby since my mom told me that she wanted to be “modern”. She regretted that, too, much later once my daughter was born and she watched us breastfeeding. I know we both realized what she (and her kids) had missed 😦
Sigh. We all hope to do better once we know better.
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Thank you for sharing!
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My parents were both smokers. They both quit cold turkey in the 1960s when the surgeon general report came out. They just did it. And I have been grateful ever since.
They taught me a lot about responsible behavior.
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Wow, yes. What a great lesson.
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