BB Grey–musings

I smoked my first Parliament cigarette today. I’m not a smoker, but I’ve had maybe 40 cigarettes in my life. Second-hand smoke? I lived with a father who smoked two packs a day until I left for college. Google tells me I’ve smoked ‘20 pack-years’(a back year being 20 cigarettes) indirectly. Add my own, and I’m at 440.

My dad smoked Parliaments, suffered, and died. The packaging is regal – light blue, dark blue, outlined in grey against a white background, like a coat of arms passed down through generations.

I remember how he’d tap the pack against his palm before opening it, a ritual as ingrained as his morning coffee. The snap of the lighter, the first deep drag, the smoke curling up – it was the soundtrack of my childhood.

Today, holding that blue and white pack, I felt a mix of nostalgia and rebellion. The smell took me back to our family room, Dad in his armchair, newspaper in hand, smoke hanging like a veil.

But there was also anger, sadness. His love for Parliaments, two packs a day, ultimately took his life. Throat and tongue cancer, spreading to his lungs and brain. Today, we’d call it stupidity, but back in the fifties, smoking was normal, deemed safe. You could smoke on planes, in restaurants,just about anywhere. Tobacco companies fooled everyone, hiding studies, rushing through corrupt systems, making their money, then fighting lawsuits with top lawyers, outlasting or settling for far less than the damage done.

I lit up. The taste was sharp, acrid, but I didn’t cough. I took another drag, watching the smoke dance around my fingers, feeling like I was talking with a ghost, each puff a word across the veil of life and death. I wondered what he’d think, seeing me mimic his habits, tasting what took him from us.

The park bench felt colder, the evening air chilling, or maybe it was just the weight of memory, of loss, pressing down on me.

I thought about all those years we lost, all those conversations we never got to have. How many cigarettes did it take to steal his presence at graduations, births, family get-togethers. How many for him to miss out on the laughter of grandchildren who would never know his quirky stories, his warm, infectious chuckle?

I stubbed out the cigarette, leaving it half-smoked on the cold metal of the bench, feeling an overwhelming mix of guilt and a strange sense of duty. I’d tasted the very poison that had ended him, but here I was, still standing, still breathing. I’d put out the flame, dodged the same addiction that had ensnared him, and walked away, leaving behind a small, smoldering reminder of our shared past.

As I turned to leave, the night air seemed to whisper, carrying his voice to me one last time. It was faint, like the echo of a memory, but it was there. Without a throat, without lungs or tongue, yet his message was clear, “Hey Kiddo, love ya, look after your mom, I’m proud of ya.” His words, or what I imagined them to be, lingered in the air for a moment, a final connection before fading away. Like the smoke from the cigarette, he vanished into the night, leaving behind just a feeling, a lingering sense of presence, a reminder of love that transcends even death..