To the editor:
A few hours ago, our family finished the funeral of my mother. She passed away of Stage 3 lung cancer caused by over 60 years of nonstop smoking.
Granted, she died on her 83rd birthday, which is a good life span, and we did know ahead of time of her situation. But I would like to take this time, in honor of her memory, to plead with everyone out there who does smoke cigarettes to please stop.
Now I'm not the type of guy who wants government to control our lives, but why our government continues to allow the selling a product that has no other purpose but to harm health is beyond me.
Granted back in the early 1940s when my parents were growing up, the illnesses caused by cigarette smoking were not yet known. Our government even passed out cigarettes to our military during World War II.
But fast forward to 2010, and the evidence is clear. The harmful effects of cigarette smoking are undeniable. Now, I understand the hold that nicotine has on the human body. My mother tried quitting several times but eventually went back because of the addiction.
To any teenager reading this — and I know you hate having people tell you what do — but do not, I repeat, do not smoke cigarettes.
Why listen to me, a complete stranger, you might ask?
There is an old saying that tells us "youth is wasted on the young." What that means is that every second of life is precious.
Your life is a gift and every breath you take is given to you. Do not waste a moment on ingesting puffs of poison.
Live for yourself and others. Live for tomorrow. Live for your future. Live long enough to get married and have children and grandchildren. Live a healthy life so you can be happy. You may believe you have a "right" to smoke, but do you have a right to abuse your body?
To all the adults out there who are smoking, I beg of you to please quit. Do it not only for your loved ones, but especially for you. Do not put yourself in the position of what I have had to witness over the past six months — my mother being in the nursing home as her health slowly declined.
The only purpose of cigarettes is to destroy life and nothing else.
Did you know that lung cancer was virtually nonexistent in 1900, but shot to one of the leading causes of death due to smoking?
It's almost as if we killed off an entire generation of people due to cigarette smoking. I know that this may sound a bit odd, but I wish I could have gone back in time and ripped that first cigarette out of my mother's mouth when she was a teenager. Then again, knowing her strong attitude, she'd have told me not to tell her what to do, even back then.
I can't believe all the second-hand smoke that my brothers and sisters and I was exposed to as we were growing up. For a parent to expose their children to years of second hand smoke nowadays is shameful.
I will miss my mother, Marion Burgess. She was a hard, independent working mom of seven children, and this letter is dedicated to her.
doug burgess
Gloucester
