Nobody raise your voices

Dear Mom and Dad,

I love you. I am writing this because I love you.

I have to hold back tears every time I come home and the house smells like smoke. I am ready to leave the house when I am sitting in my bedroom and get a whiff of cigarette smoke. I am not going to lecture you on the ill effects of smoking because I know you know what you are doing to your body, but perhaps you don't think about what it does to your family. Your children don't even want to be around when you are smoking. We complain to each other about how the house smells like smoke because you don't want to smoke outside. We don't like it and I don't think I should have to breathe in toxic air because of your bad habit. I know it's hard to quit. I understand that it's an addiction. I just don't understand how you don't even try. You say you will, you will quit, you want to quit, but it doesn't happen, and one time when it did you started again. WHY?!?? What drove you to do it again? I don't get it! You are poisoning me and my brothers and your mother! But most importantly you are poisoning your own body! Your temple holding the King of Kings and His Holy Spirit. You are treating like crap the beautiful vessel God has created for you. Haven't you seen your own dad? Haven't you seen how hard it is for him to walk across the room? Do you want to become like him physically? Not able to care for his own wife because he's been smoking his entire life! My heart breaks for you. My heart breaks for my grandparents. My heart just plain breaks. I am tired of coming home having to breathe in second hand smoke because you cannot control your addiction. I do not want to say "I told you so" when you're a few years older and using an oxygen tank.

Mom, I remember a year or so ago you told me you wanted to run a marathon in two years. What happened to that ambition? I challenge you to stop smoking while I am in India. You have nine months, and if you do I will train with you and we'll run a marathon in 2010!

Dad, It seems like such a selfish thing to do, smoke all the time. Have you ever figured out how much money you spend a year on cigarettes? I know money is tight. It would help financially, physically, and spiritually. Everything would be a little better, a little cleaner! I challenge you to stop smoking while I am in India. You have nine months, and if you do I will go to the cabin with you every weekend and shoot guns with you!

There is nothing I want more on this earth right now than for my parents to stop smoking. I am ready to live somewhere else. I am ready to make them piss mad at me for bringing it up a million times. If they know how horrible it is then why put themselves through the torture and their own children! I know people who have lung cancer or throat cancer because of cigarettes and they're younger than my parents, but started around the same age. I can't imagine what my parent's lungs look like. I don't even want to know. Ignorance is not bliss in this situation. My parents could be 5 months away from cancer, or 5 days away! Life is short. Don't waste it doing stupid things.