Good morning fellow EXer's! Two years ago today I came to this site to inform you that our Dear Sister in Freedom, Dawn had gone to her reward.(see link below) As I look around the site today I realize that most of you never knew her! She was the first site member that I ever met in person, and while we were very different in a lot of our thinking, we became very good friends! To this day, the last photo of us together graces my home page at this site!
The memory of her death, two years ago, serves to remind me today that life goes on Smoke Free or not! Good things will happen to, and because of us! Very bad things will happen to and because of us! It is life! And, good or bad, no matter which we face, life is better when we can face it Smoke Free!
In the last two years many of you have faced horrible things. So many of you have done this and not used your plight as an EXcuse to smoke. Some of you have faltered and recoved, and are living Free today! Some have used "life" as an EXcuse to return to addiction. I hope you can find your way back to Freedom.
Our Dawn was a fine EXample of of facing life, and sticking to your committments! During the last year and a half of her life she fought a cancer that has no cure. She knew she was going to die. And she lived in constant pain. But, never once did she back down from her two big commitments in life. Her faith in God, and her committment to never smoke again. A doctor once ask her how she knew she would never smoke again, and she replied "Because, I would rather die than smoke another cigarette!". That is committment! As far as her faith, a few weeks before she died, one of her daughters did something that made her proud, and she told me (not for the first time) "I am His favorite, I tell you!" In spite of the pain and suffering she was going through, she still believed she was God's favorite child!
Today, I hope that every one of us can find strength to stand by our committments the way my friend Dawn stood by hers! Understand, my friends, that the burdens that life piles on us are not reasons to smoke! The celebrations that life offers us are not reasons to smoke! There are no reasons to smoke!
Live life out loud my friends! And, live it Smoke Free! Tommy
https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/blogs/pir8fan-blog/2012/05/14/dawn-krupa-rest-in-peace-my-dear-de...
