As Dr. Malcolm said in Jurassic Park, "Life...finds a way." You can't escape major life events; you can only live through them.
I think back to all the funerals during which I stood outside smoking instead of being inside with the people I gathered to be with! I think back to how I must have smelled when I did go in. I was never fully there with the people I love.
I think about all the cigarette smoke I exposed my first baby grandson to when they'd come to visit at the old house. And how I'd stink to high heaven when I'd come in from smoking when I'd visit Boston. The hugs must have been painful for them.
It seems as though all the major life events I've lived through during the past 45+ years were punctuated by smoking. Learning to live every day without smoking is hard enough. Learning to live during peak times is even harder, being more rare. Part of that is being present, paying attention, taking in all the feels of the moment and reveling in them. Even funerals. That's what we're there for, after all.
