Posted 2:32 AM by MS
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: MS
To: Dad
Subject: deadly addiction...

Do you remember that day, I must have been five? You dropped me off at grandma's for the weekend. We drove on your motorcycle -- I used to think I was the coolest kid in town. You were my hero, you have always been my hero. You dropped me off, we walked in, you stayed a while. I sat at your feet, clinging on to your leg -- it's not that I didn't want to be there, exactly, I just didn't want you to go. When the front door closed behind you, I guarded the chair you sat on, putting my face against its back, hoping to catch a whiff of your cologne one more time before the scent vanished into the air. That day, you lit a cigarette on the way out and she yelled at you for smoking. She said you would die of cancer. You laughed, waved goodbye and walked out. I couldn't have been older than five. Cancer was the only death I understood back then. I thought you were dying, that I would never see you again. I was terrified. I spent most of the weekend crying.

Almost every single day of my life contains an element of that night. You cannot imagine how terrified I am of losing you both. Seventeen years have passed since that night, and I still feel five years old most of the time... Couldn't you have just put it out?