I try so hard to hate the smell of cigarettes. The flick of a lighter is so familiar to my ears, I feel as if I’m going to turn and see you there with your pack of red Capris. I remember your laugh and the crooked smile that worked its way to the edges of your mouth before you could make it to the punch-line of a crude joke. I remember the way your eyes crinkled at the corners and exactly how your hands and mouth moved as you took a drag and then held the cigarette away. I could still smell the smoke.
My friends hold theirs away from me like that, too. They avoid the subject as if the thought will make me crumble like the ash off the end of their stoke. I don’t crumble that easily.
It wasn’t just the smoking. Mom took me to the ER with her. I had never seen you that sick before, and you were so scared and confused, you wouldn’t take water from the doctors because you thought ‘they’ were after you. I was eleven when I had to rescue my hero. I learned that parents need to be taken care of and that sometimes, heroes wear soccer cleats and finish their homework under the covers with a flashlight. Sometimes they turn down a hug and walk away from your surprised and broken face so that you’ll realize you need to stop fighting mom when she tells you to take your medicine. I still remember exactly how it felt to leave you standing there the first time I wasn’t on your side because I was always on your side. You were my best friend, and you never told me what to think. You taught me how to agree to disagree. Maybe that’s how I hated your habit but supported your right to do it.
When the world was against you, I understood that you needed it to be okay for you to give in. I knew when you were in institutions for months, and then for years without coming home, I couldn’t be mad at you for starting again. You were the one who took me hiking and gave me my love for the outdoors, and I watched the life drain from your body as you spent your days looking at the sky through wire netting and eventually through nursing home windows.
Even looking back I’m all tangled up. I lay ink on a reliable blank page, attempting to sculpt words into some sort of clarity for myself the way I’ve done in the past. I flail in the dark, blindly grabbing memories as they come, fighting with myself for forgiveness. Each time I think I’ve reached the surface with some sort of resolve, I’m shoved underneath again and I’m tired of swimming.
Heroes agree to disagree. They hold your hand and don’t let you see them cry as you grimace from the pain of the intubator that was never supposed to be put there. They even agree to disagree when you can’t fight anymore. They tell you it’s okay and play “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” on the ukulele in the chair next to your hospital bed, knowing it’s the last time you’ll ever whisper “I love you, sport” from underneath the machine pumping air in and out of your tattered lungs.
It’s amazing how smell can bring back memories. One waft of cigarette smoke… I can still hear your voice. The thing that took you from us is the thing that brings me back. I try so hard to hate the smell of cigarettes.
@2 months ago#writing #spilled ink
