She was a little small for a five year old, but she had enthusiasm to spare. Her bobbed hair bounced as she nodded emphatically to his procedural disclosure. She gripped as many tools as she could hold in her small hands, clutching them to her chest and dirtying her favorite red shirt. Truthfully, he had all the tools he needed in his shirt pocket, but he needed to occupy her hands. He didn't require a helper to wire the phone jack, but she followed behind him like a loyal puppy. She listened to every word and watched everything he did, then recalled it a dozen years later in order to rewire the phone jack in her bedroom after he disabled it as punishment.

His hand trembles, fumbling for the edge of the sheet and tugging at it erratically. He has a reason for doing it, but she'd been unable to extract any meaning from the action for the last two hours. He has something to say. There's something he wants. Yes, he's hot, but just a little. Yes, he'd like some water, but hates the suctioning. Where is his wife? He was appeased momentarily when her voice filled the room via speakerphone and announced she'd be arriving in two hours. Not twenty minutes later, he was devastated to hear that she'd changed her mind and wasn't coming. She's tired, she said. Wasn't he tired too? He has something to say, but nobody understands. He wants something, but nobody can give it to him. She desperately wants to help... and can't.

His hand has several dark, purple-brown bruises that snake their way up his thin arm. They've been there for weeks, but they're not fading. There's no yellowing. They're not healing. He's not healing. Gowned, gloved, and masked, I drag the chair to his bedside and settle in, a poor substitute for my mother. Sometimes, he holds my hand. Sometimes, he pats it. He alternates holding and patting, occasionally lifting my hand toward his chest and then pushing it away. Once, out of frustration, he slapped my hand hard, which he followed with a moment of gentle caressing. This is how we interact, for the most part. He moves the only limb he has control over and I silently cry while trying to accommodate him. He's dying. I'm dying too. We're all dying, every day that we live. His dying, however, is accelerated. God, I hate feeling so helpless. How selfish is that?

Can you imagine it? He's been confined to a hospital bed for eight months, to the day. In that time, he's lost three organs, had a heart attack and a stroke, and gone blind. The ventilator and tracheotomy have silenced his voice. Multiple infections are ravaging his body. His medical team convened a meeting with the Ethics Board and determined it was unethical to continue treating him. Still, my mother refuses to acknowledge the reality of his situation.

He was twenty years old and entirely too cool to even acknowledge a little high school nerd like me. His hair was dirty blond, his skin was deeply tanned, and he may have had beautiful eyes, but I couldn't look into them to discover their color for any reason; inviting criticism wasn't high on my priority list. Spending time with him, however, was and I was thrilled when he said he might stop by, if nothing else was going on. I was fourteen, home alone for an extended period for the first time, and... a complete moron.

I don't do anything "just a little bit." When I engage in something, I dive in head first without testing the water. One of the last things I remember about that day was waking up momentarily next to a bountiful puddle of my own colorful vomit on my bedroom floor with my pants down to my knees and hearing my father say that he'd take care of me after he'd driven my best friend home. Several hours later, I woke there again to a darkened, silent house. In the wee hours of the morning, I crawled up the stairs to my parents' bedroom, where I swore I'd only had ONE (never ending) glass of sloe gin. I cried, lied, and begged for mercy. The next day, I spent hours trying to scrub the carpet clean. I was grounded for months. I didn't touch another drop of alcohol for more than two years.

When I was sixteen, I started babysitting for my best friend's cousin. The cousin and his girlfriend both worked at a local pizza place and paid me, after the first few weeks of cash, with cheap beer and cold pizza. We'd sit around drinking every night after they got off work until I had just enough time to crawl into bed at home before my father's alarm clock went off at 4 a.m. By the middle of my senior year in high school, we had a routine: we drank until I was nauseous, smoked some weed to settle my stomach, and occasionally fired up a crack pipe for fifteen minutes of invincibility when we had $20 after buying beer. My morning routine changed, too. Instead of worrying whether my hair had reached the proper height, I was raiding the medicine cabinet and downing a bottle of whatever was in my parents' mini-fridge as I showered. I slept through my classes, so I could start all over again that night.

In February of that year, someone finally noticed that I was drunk in school. I spent a month in a lockdown rehab facility, where I played along until they started talking about sending me home. The night before my "graduation," I walked out. My best friend's mother let me move in with them and I stayed there for three months. My aunt took me in, let me finish my senior year, and shipped me off to college at the end of the summer. I was "sober" for almost ten months before I started drinking again. I hid my drinking from the Voice until I was raped and found out about my pregnancy. As of this moment, I've been sober for 5,831 days (or 15 years and 356 days).

Compared to my current addiction, quitting drinking was insanely easy. Really, getting sober was the only course of action available to me. Maintaining sobriety is the difference between having this blessed life with my nuclear family and hearing snippets of second and third-hand gossip about how well my daughter is doing in school or how my husband has moved on and is dating again. I've picked up some tools in the last 15 years that have proven useful in keeping me on track. It's rare that I think about drinking at all; usually, these thoughts are momentary regrets that I can't taste a new concoction that sounds tasty or, at its worst, that I can't be more like "normal" people. Fortunately, I know what a steaming pile of poo that is.

Yesterday, I bought NicoDerm CQ. I've been smoking at least a pack a day for the last 18 years, minus the 28 days I spent in rehab and six months back in 1997. This morning, as I was considering all of this, I ran out to buy what I hope is my last pack of "Newport 100's in the box."

Even as I was driving to the gas station, I knew it was a bullshit excuse.

"You didn't finish reading the user's guide. You can start off right tomorrow morning."

I'm already bargaining with myself and I haven't even tried to stop yet.

I have just as many good reasons to quit smoking as I did to quit drinking:

1. My father needs a smoke-free environment to recover in. Someday.
   
2. I'm scared to death of cancer and the increased risk I've imposed on my husband, daughter, dog, and cats.
3. I'm tired of coughing with every change in air temperature, chest congestion, and sinus problems.
   
4. The cost per carton has risen to $57 and I could definitely spend that money on something more rewarding.
5. I hate the taste, smell, and the film coating the walls of my office.
   
6. I want to live the best quality of life I can for as long as I can. 
7. I want to grow old with my husband.
8. I want to spoil my child's future children.
9. I am a strong, independent woman and I don't need this freaking crutch to cope with stress.
10. I miss smelling subtle scents.
    
11. I have no idea what food actually tastes like anymore.
    
12. Measuring time in ten minute increments or scheduling around the need to smoke is stupid, and insane.
13. I have been smoking for more than half of my life. If I were still pegging my jeans or depleting the ozone with excessive hairspray use, I'd seek professional help. Why is smoking any different?
14. As a non-smoker, I would no longer contribute a minimum of 7,300 cigarette butts, 365 packs, and 37 cartons to the local landfill yearly, further reducing my destructive impact on the environment.
15. My dog avoids me when I'm smoking.
16. Smoking provides a barrier between me and those around me that is unneccesary.
    
17. Now is the best time, for everyone involved, for me to quit smoking.
18. If Uncle Doc can do it, I can too.
19. This is the last holdover from my using days.
20. Cuddling after sex rather than getting up to smoke ftw.

I wish I didn't make that excuse and buy that pack. At least I recognize it for what it is. I'm not going to consider this my first failure. I'm not going to throw out the pack. Today, I'm going to enjoy my Sunday. We have a mailbox to assemble and erect. There's been some consideration given to grilling. Dinner will definitely consist of meatloaf burgers, corn on the cob, fresh fruit, and salad. I might even be feeling spunky enough to finish up the laundry. Later, I will finish reading the user's guide. Tomorrow is a new day.

His mostly-gray hair is shorter than usual. It juts up and out in random patches on top and lays completely flat on the back of his head. He's clean-shaven for the first time in weeks today. His right arm is swollen, heavy with fluids that his disabled kidneys cannot process. Occasionally, he coughs; his face reddens with the strain, but these episodes are silent. The ventilator and IV pump provide a variety of interesting, and sometimes alarming, sounds. He mouths his words less carefully the first time than he does the third time and, when frustration at our incomprehension boils over, he points vehemently at the laminated sheet with the alphabet on one side and pictures on the other. He's been bedridden for 61 days.

When we walked in, he was staring at the closed blinds on the enormous window three feet from his bed. He greeted us without a smile, but scooted up slightly in the bed. I showed him a card I bought for him to give his wife on Mother's Day, reading it to him. Talk about an awkward purchase. What does a man say to his wife when no one else is around? Especially a man who so seldom speaks? It was sweet and seemed to reflect the way he has lived, ending with a sentiment something like: "But, most of all, it means that I will spend every day of my life with the woman who means everything to me." He nodded and said it was a good card, but he wasn't feeling up to signing it. I slid it into the top drawer of the nightstand and said that maybe he'd feel like doing it later, or tomorrow. He did have dialysis today and that's tiring.

The first question he asked was whether I'd talked to his wife. She was doing yard work when I saw her and said she would be up to see him later. He nodded at that news, and frowned. We babbled on about the news and mundane happenings that take place in daily life, but his interest peaked when I asked if he'd heard about Chrysler. We talked about the automaker's bankruptcy and the unfairness of setting a time limit on negotiations with Fiat. He hadn't heard yet that Wagoner was forced to resign and looked genuinely concerned at the news. He shook his head and rolled his eyes when I told him that Wagoner took a $20M severance package, though. He asked who replaced Wagoner, but I didn't know. I assured him that I would find out and report back to him tomorrow. Apparently, Wagoner was replaced by Chief Operating Officer Frederick "Fritz" Henderson.

He asked, only once, what time it was. There's no clock in his room. He's asked every day for the last three days about the time. It passes slowly for me, as a visitor; I can't imagine how slowly it passes for him. He flipped through the channels on his television over and over, finally settling on the news. Twice more, he asked if I'd spoken to his wife. Several minutes after the third inquiry, he asked me to go call her. Thankfully, she was getting in the car when I called.

She walked in, freshly showered, but still looking tired, and headed directly to the left side of his bed. His eyes brightened, opening wider than they'd been the entire visit, and he patted her side several times before running his fingertips over her belly. He smiled, resting his hand on her shoulder until she donned gloves and could hold his hand. We made polite conversation, the four of us, over his bed and then the girl and I excused ourselves.

This year marks their 40th year of marriage, yet my father literally came alive when my mother entered the room. I won't pretend that they don't have their differences or that they never fight, but I can never remember a time when my father expressed any sentiment short of complete adoration for my mother. Until I saw that subtle interaction at his hospital bedside, I'd almost forgotten that they were more than my aging parents. They are lovers and the best of friends. Though I have made grievous mistakes in my marriage, this is the love I aspire to have: a strong, enduring love that cannot be stemmed even in the worst circumstances.