I picked him up at Vacation Bible School and we went together directly to the food store. He was all excited about having had a nurse come to visit them that day. “She told us that our bodies are our temples and we need to protect them from illness… That this is one of the things we do to please God.” He went on and on about the many parts of the body that he had learned about that morning. His energy to talk and share was endless.
At last we were at the food store and I began to pick out the items that were on my shopping list. He usually stayed right next to me and visited with everyone that passed us while we traveled up and down the aisles of the store. And then I missed him. Instantly I began to search. I left the shopping cart where I had been and went up and down the aisles to find him. I was approaching the meat counter in the back of the store. Relief flooded through my soul. I could hear him.
There he was standing in front of a cart not allowing a man (who was smoking like an old locomotive) to continue on his way. He was lecturing him on the dangers of smoking in a most animated manner. The man was clearly embarrassed and getting more irritated by the minute. But this little bro would not stop. When an explanation of the man’s endangered anatomy was unsuccessful in getting him to put out his cigarette, my little cherub looked to the front of the store and pointed out, much to the man’s chagrin, that an ordinance was posted in the front window of the store prohibiting smoking inside a grocery. He even gave the man the number of the ordinance.
By now, little bro had a crowd gathering to listen to him. This bro? A crowd gathering meant talk more, and longer, and louder because others wished to be informed. The man finally left his cart right there, headed the opposite direction for the front of the store and left for the parking lot. As he exited, we all noticed that he did not put out his cigarette.
I retrieved my son as he was announcing to all who would listen, “That man is not making God very happy.”
Years previous: My mother use to constantly tell her children about her father smoking these very bad cigarettes. She said he would finish one and light up another immediately.
One day my granddad noticed that his skin was getting very sick. It got so bad that he could stick needles right through his skin to the muscle and out the other side of the infected appendage with no blood letting. (This was called “Burgers’ Disease). His skin began to further discolor to an ugly kind of mucky rotted brown. He went to the doctor. That doc and staff tried everything to help my granddad get well; nothing worked. In a last ditch effort, Grandpa began to consider his habits. He decided to stop smoking. He quit cold turkey and never lit up another cigarette again. His body healed all but one place on one ankle, which he used to show us kids just to gross us out. He’d then tell us, “Never smoke. That’s a bad habit.”
My brother didn’t listen any better than the man my son chased out of the food store. When Tom went into the navy he was my mom’s clean-cut son. When he came home after boot camp, he smoked… I use to say to him, “Gee Tom, basic training was so bad it drove you to cigarettes!” He’d laugh and light up.
Smoking is illegal in any public building in our country. In fact, a smoker is pretty much ostracized if he chooses to light up. It used to be so cool to smoke. As kids, we’d even go to the store and buy candy cigarettes and pretend we did it. Take a look at some of the old flicks… They lit up a lot! They were our heroes and for many they were role models. And there is this: A recent report collecting data on candy sales tells us that candy cigarettes are still the best selling item in candy stores during the Halloween Season (ABCTV local news). So maybe a part of us, young or old, still wants to live dangerously.
To this day, I have family members who smoke. Breaks my heart and I wish they wouldn’t do it. But they have the right to make their own choices. And, if that’s the worst thing I ever have to worry about for my family? Well, I consider myself a blessed woman!
May your worries all be little ones as well.
Best… Carolyn Thomas Temple