On smoking, turds and butterflies
Before March 8, 2016, I hadn’t had a cigarette in years. My dad died that afternoon and that evening, as my siblings and mother assembled around the kitchen table, stunned and trying to come up with funeral plans, I joined them in the garage. I didn’t really think about it, just moved with them as a herd; a collective thread of pain. That first cigarette didn’t taste good. It wasn’t soothing. But, it felt right to sit in that dark, smoky space with my nuclear family minus one.
My dad had multiple myeloma. He died quickly, two weeks after being diagnosed. Due to his compromised lung function, he was on a forced air mask that made his mouth intolerably dry and he spent one night in the company of my siblings asking them every few minutes how long until he could have his next drink of water. I wasn’t there, but I know he was miserable. He had spent most of his life working outdoors in Kansas summer heat, which is a heavy, moist affair usually with wind. I asked him once how he tolerated it and he always said, “I don’t mind the heat as long as I have water.”
I have spent the last nine months with cigarettes as my most loyal companion. My grief sponsor. They were with me three days after he died when I called Old Navy customer service to tell them that they were fucking worthless after losing the dress I purchased to wear to Dad’s funeral. I later found it on the backseat of my sister’s car. (I called back to Customer Service the Monday after the funeral to wait on hold for Armando and apologize; reassuring him that the vitriol I spewed was mine, grief-soaked and irrational and that I’m sure he was a lovely person and I hoped for the best for him).
Cigarettes joined me every day as I tore out of my office looking for the first dirt road I could find. For the washboard bumps, the cloud of dust behind me, the interstitial feeling of sitting with my loss before I had to go fake it back in my real life, where people expected me to be therapist, mother and wife. I could be broken with them.
My husband was not impressed with this new grief mistress of mine. He shamed, cajoled, supported, urged, forgave and eventually relented regarding the smoking. Because of that pressure from him, smoking became even more private. Clandestine. Deeply personal and infuriating that I couldn’t stop. I tried to stop for days upon days. Stuck in what seemed like a never ending shame spiral. Confessing to nearly everyone I encountered, waiting for the inevitable judgment that sometimes came, but most of the time was replaced by a sympathetic head tilt. I would devote the energy that my grief was demanding to quitting smoking, being a good mother, and ‘coming back’ from the abyss where I’d taken up residence. Every day, I failed at this.
Arriving almost on two wheels at the seediest convenience store, where I would be least likely to be recognized. I would stand behind their dumpster and smoke two, three in a row. Feeling the encompass of the smoke. The reminder that I wasn’t ok, that I was fucked up and lost; and how comforting that was.
Four months in, I bought a different car and set the boundary that I wouldn’t smoke in it. That led the several-times-daily smoke breaks to the park near my office. I would sit on the curb, crouched behind my car furtively smoking. Looking for chicken hawks (something my dad always looked for).
Many days there was a sort of crusty looking old White Veteran who would drive slowly through the park. I imagined that he was on some sort of self-imposed security rounds, telling his wife as he turned off Family Feud that he needed to go, “secure the areas.” He stopped when he saw me, the first time asking if I was lost, but always inquiring about what I was doing. “Just having a smoke break,” I’d say kindly but a little defiantly. He’d always answer, “Nothing wrong with that.” I genuinely appreciated his support, even though as he drove away I would mutter something about him being a Trump supporter under my breath. I didn’t want him to be a part of this. Oh, and I’m a little bit of an asshole.
One day as I was smoking, I noticed a big piece of dog shit near me. It was summer and hot. The kind of day that makes dog shit more gross. Oozy, even. I looked closer to see a butterfly on top of it. It seemed like the most apt metaphor for life at that minute — a steaming pile of shit, with a momentary flutter of beauty.
I’ve sort of wondered if this time I’ve spent smoking has been some unconscious connection to Dad. I’ve noticed that after I’m done smoking, I’m hit with intolerable thirst. Draining bottles of water as fast as I can and noticing how completely dry my mouth is; like a toddler who drinks so hard that they pant and gasp when they finally put their cup down . On some level, was I attempting to join with my dad’s last conscious misery of being just so thirsty? There have been times I’ve really celebrated the fact that I’ve had a body that I could punish so hard with smoking and then reward so generously with cold water. The butterfly on the turd again.
I thought for awhile that smoking was making me feel better. That it was sufficiently allowing me to avoid the pain; to focus on something else. Only recently have I realized that smoking was giving me permission to not be OK but without having to explain it to someone. And that I needed that ritual of, “I’m not OK” to be aware of the moments where I am OK.
