Some Who Smoke Luckier Than Others

Dear Ann Landers: I have read so much about smokers and what horrible deaths they suffer. This letter will be a little different.

My sister, “Alice,” and I lived together all our lives, and she smoked like a chimney. I tried it for a while when I was a teenager, and when my date said, “Your breath stinks,” I quit. After that, I couldn’t stand it when Alice smoked in the house.

I told her, “I will give you $1,000 if you quit smoking.” Her reply was “I will give you $1,000 if you keep your mouth shut about it.” I took the $1,000 and was sorry soon after because I had to keep my mouth shut when she blew smoke in my face.

Alice was never sick a day in her life. She lived to be 94 and dropped dead with a smile on her face. Guess who’s sick from her smoke? Me. - Annie in Illinois

Dear Annie: Call it the luck of the draw. Some people can smoke for years and suffer no ill effects, but the odds are heavily against it. Much depends on how many cigarettes you smoke and how much you inhale. And of course, there are a few, like your sister, who beat the odds. But it’s a very dangerous gamble, and the loser pays dearly. Keep reading, and you’ll see what I mean:

Dear Ann: This is for the angry smoker who wanted to continue to smoke so he could “die happy.”

You want to die happy? OK. You will if you enjoy fighting for every breath and being too exhausted to drive a car or bathe and dress yourself. And think of the fun of being tethered to an oxygen condenser with a tube fastened in your nose and worrying every time it storms that the electricity will go off and the condenser won’t work.

And what a joy it is to drag a portable oxygen tank whenever you leave the house, and endure the stares of strangers as a family member pushes you in your wheelchair.

Smoke and die happy? Don’t kid yourself. Through it all, you will be sad, knowing if you had stopped smoking long before, you would have had a totally different life.

My husband was diagnosed with smoking-related emphysema in 1981. He had quit smoking some time before, but it wasn’t soon enough. He struggled for 11 years before he died. It is no exaggeration to say smoking robbed him of many years of a good life, and no, he did not die happy. - South Holland, Ill.

Dear Ann: I need advice on what to do about my sweet 70-year-old mother-in-law. For the past four years, that dear woman and her husband have visited once or twice a year. They stay at my husband’s ex-wife’s home, 3 miles away.

I realize that his mother has known “June” for 25 years and considers her a friend, but my husband is her only son, and it hurts him. Whether she considers me her daughter-in-law is not my concern. She is hurting my husband. I feel she can visit the ex-wife as often as she likes, but she should stay at our home.

Should I say something to her, or should my husband? Or should we both ignore the issue? I’d like to know how to handle this before the next visit at Christmas. - Perplexed in Illinois

Dear Illinois: Apparently, your mother-in-law has a long-established relationship with your husband’s ex-wife and is very fond of her. You might tell your mother-in-law that she is very welcome to stay with you so she could spend more time with her son, but you would both understand if she preferred not to.