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Christmas In August

JonesCarpeDiem
6 15 121

Life is full of Joy and Sadness

And there's not a damn thing we can do about it  

Except not smoke. That is our choice.

It' inevitable we will have deeply emotional memories after we quit smoking.

      I was thinking of Christmas just now. More about how it was never going to be the same again. It was a melancholy realization.

      My mom had 9 brothers and sisters and my dad 7.

      Before we moved to the house my dad built when I was 11, we lived in a smaller house so we used to have two Christmas Eve get togethers. One for my dad's side early and then, one for my mom's side of the family.

      After we moved my dads family started having theirs at one my cousins house but they had dogs that my mom was extremely allergic to, so, we had to stop going there. After we moved it was either at our house or my aunt's house.

      We regularly had over 100 people at the latter. People would drop in for a couple hours so everything was fluid. Everyone brought a favorite dish, sweet or savory and there was always a huge punch bowl with ginger ale and orange sherbet that was constantly being added to. It was our once a year for everyone get together.

      We had 40 Richfield (service station) Christmas carol books. We'd pass them out and I would play guitar or bass and my twin and younger brother would play guitar and piano. We'd go through every carol in the book and end the music by my singing O Holy Night for my mom.

Atlantic Richfield.JPG

         She left us in 1999. Somewhere, I believe have a video of her doing a dance with one of her brothers her last Christmas. She knew it was her last and wanted that to be a special memory of her.

         Her doctor had told her she had 10 years to live just 9 years earlier after she contracted a heart virus on a trip to Europe that had specifically attacked and damaged her heart.  She first told us this in August of 1998, 9 months before she left. 

        

   Sadness does not require smoking. Happiness does not require smoking.

Life is both and we can live through both without smoking.

Merry Christmas, smoke free, in August.

I found the video of my mom dancing with her brother Byron.

Since I can't post a video to this blog I'm posting it in the following link.

(PS my brother is a hoot on the piano)

Jingle Bells 

    

15 Comments
About the Author
Hello, My name is Dale. I was quit 18 months before joining this site and had participated on another site during that time. I learned a lot there and brought it with me. I joined this site the first week of August 2008. I didn't pressure myself to quit. HOW I QUIT I didn't count, I didn't deny myself to get started. When I considered quitting (at a friends request to influence his brother to quit), I simply told myself to wait a little longer. No denial, nothing painful. After 4 weeks I was down to 5 cigarettes from a pack a day. The strength came from proving to myself, I didn't need to smoke because I normally would have smoked. Simple yes? I bought the patch. I forgot to put one on on the 4th day. I needed it the next day but the following week I forgot two days in a row I put one in my wallet with a promise to myself that I would slap it on and wait an hour rather than smoke. It rode in my wallet my first year.There's nothing keeping any of you from doing this. It doesn't cost a dime. This is about unlearning something you've done for a long time. The nicotine isn't the hard part. Disconnecting from the psychological pull, the memories and connected emotions is. :-) Time is the healer.