This section is devoted to remembering those we have lost through the effects of smoking. Many precious lives have been lost from the ravages of smoking. Please feel free to email me and provide any information that you want me to add to this section.

Please be sure to see The Memorial Wall and also to add a loved one to the Wall!

I lost the most important person to me on Feb. 10, 2003.  My grandmother Dorothy Irene McFarland passed away from emphysema/COPD.  She fought a long hard fight but in the end the lack of air was to much for her.  I smoked up until Feb, 9, 2003 but watching her not be able to get a breathe that would satisfy her was a enough to make me stop wasting my lungs away for a cigarette. She always wanted me to quit and learn from her example before it was to late, I hope she knows that my love for her is the reason I have stopped.  If I could have breathed for her I would have. She had her family with her and I pray to God her passing was peaceful, but I miss her very much. 

from Marilyn:

My mother Shirley died of lung cancer in 1995, just 3 weeks before her great grand daughter was born. I still miss her. There was so much more I needed her for. But mostly I need her hugs and wisdom. She was a wonderful lady and I think about her every day. My little grand daughter will never know her laughter and how my "Mom" would have loved her.

from Marvin:

Please add my grandmother Mary Smutz to the rememberence list.  She died of smoking induced lung cancer that went systemic in 1979

Anonymous:

My maternal grandfather died from lung/brain cancer when I was 6. He was such a neat person. Started smoking at age 12. My maternal grandmother died from cancer in 1995. She smoked since her 20's. Fortunately I lived in the same town as her. She was in such tremendous pain. She was always a perfectly groomed lady, perfect hair, perfect nails, perfect clothing.....then she was sick. It was hard to see her waste away. I had never smoked at that time and vowed not to. My paternal grandfather died of cancer in 1997, when my twins were one month old. He was so proud of them, and only saw them once before he started having dementia. He died one month after his diagnosis. He smoked camels since his teenage years. He stopped a couple of years before he became sick. My maternal grandmother died in January. She had smoked 3 packs a day for 50 years. She came to live with me in November last year. She had osteoporosis, opsteoarthritis, and many other ailments. She couldn't sleep for more than an hour before having to wake up to cough. I am quitting because I don't want my grandchildren to have to "change my diapers" and bathe me and dress me like I had to do for both of my grandmothers. I am quitting because I don't want my children and grandchildren to have to spend numerous hours driving me to chemo and radiation, like I had to.

from Holly:

Both of my parents smoked and five of their six daughters smoked at one time too. All but one of those five has now quit. I'm the most recent one to quit. I lost my mother 20 years ago to lung cancer. She was 57 years old. Even watching her die wasn't enough to make me quit. I guess it was my getting older and closer to the age she died that finally forced me to realize that I didn't want to hear a doctor tell me I had lung cancer.

from Annie:

Just wanted to add this to the ones we have lost from smoking

I lost my hero in 1989 to lung cancer.  To a girl her daddy is and always will be her hero.  My dad was just 57 years old and had smoked for numerous years.  Alot of this was because in the 1950's the stigma was is was cool to smoke and everyone did it.  Then in 1998 I lost my best friend to congestive heart failure which I'm sure was more than likely intensified by her smoking.  This best friend was my mother.  She was only 60 years old.    My life was completely changed when my mother died because I guess I finally realized that I myself needed to quit in order to be around longer than my parents were for my son.  Smoking can affect many lives and take away many loved ones too soon. 

from Shelley:

My mother-in-law , I never met, She past away just days before I met my husband. Cause of death ...complications from the brain tumors and lung cancer from years of smoking. She was only in her late 50's. My husband wept for months over the loss of his mom and said one of the reasons he loved me was because I was so much like his mom. 8 years later his biggest regret was his mom never got to meet me or his two sons.

My father-in-law pasted away 3 yrs ago. From lung cancer.  It over took his body so fast there wasn't even time from treatment. they now say it started as lung cancer but effected almost all his other organs. When he first found out was given 12 weeks, within days they changed it to 6 weeks then 2 weeks and was gone 5 days after finding out he was even sick.

My husband now says he has no family as he knew it when he grew up but is also jealous of my parents being the only grandparents our children will ever know.

I've vowed my grandchildren will have more than one set of grandparents. After smoking for 15 yrs. I will do anything to save my family from going through what my husband has gone through loosing his parents.

from Charlene:

In 1976 my mother died from cancer (not tobacco related) at the age of 56. In 1979 my father died from stomach/esophagus cancer, he was a nicotine addict (chewing tobacco). Two years later I sat on the steps at my brother’s home talking to my uncle. Everyone has one of those uncle’s that the treasure, the one that is so very special. This was mine, and he already suffered severely with emphysema. I told him of my pregnancy and he was excited for me. Later as he visited me at the birth he could not catch his breath or even speak from the walk into the hospital. He had to leave and get his oxygen. A few months later as I visited him in his home (confined to a bed) I saw his cigarettes lying on the night stand. He would turn off his oxygen in order to smoke. I saw with my own eyes the power of the addiction, yet, I continued to wear my blinders for many more years to come as I fed my own nicotine addiction.

I finally quit smoking on March 18, 1999 after smoking for 30 years. I could look back and say what a fool I had been, but it would do no good. Besides, I’m not going that way. I am going forward.

from Mike:

My father was a 2 pack a day Pall Mall straights smoker since the time he entered World War II. He died of lung cancer when I was 12 years old, leaving my mother with 2 other teenage boys and myself to care for. Nothing prepares a 12 year old boy to deal with a dying father who is so medicated he can't even remember your name - this image will never be erased from my memory. I also had and aunt and an uncle die of emphysema - it's seems like all my memories of them revolve around watching them either gasping for breath or with their oxygen tanks. I also had numerous other aunts and uncles die from smoking related heart failure and strokes.

In 1990 my mother died of congestive heart failure, a 2 pack a day Old Gold filter smoker. She had suffered a stroke only 1 year earlier, at the age of 64 - 2 months before her retirement. My quit is dedicated to them, but it's also dedicated to my children - I pray they never have to see their father suffer as I saw mine.

from David:

I lost my father from emphysema when I was 24 years old. I was getting married in the Fall of that year and my fiance and myself moved the wedding up to July because we knew that he wouldn't make it through the summer. It was difficult for our family but it was a blessing in disguise because he was on oxygen 24 hour a day, he could barely breathe and all of his vital organs were deteriorating.

Emphysema is a terrible way to die. I wish my father quit smoking before his medical problem became life threatening. I quit smoking the day he died and it was definitely the best thing that I ever did for myself.

from Sherma:

My uncle smoked for as long as I knew him. I can never remember him without a cigarette in his hand. I later learned that he had the initial symptoms of emphysema and it got progressively worse as the years went by. His doctor told him that if he didn't quit smoking that he would certainly die from smoking. He later had to go on oxygen and was eventually on it 24 hours a day! What a shame to have to live your life not being able to go anywhere without a tube into your nose and an oxygen bottle at your side!

from Steve:

Both of my parents were killed by cigarettes. My father died 12 years ago from a massive heart attack caused by atherosclerosis - he smoked 80 cigarettes a day. I continued to smoke, so did my mother.

Mum had a dense stroke a year ago, and spent the following year learning how to swallow, how to stand and walk. When she was released from hospital after 3 months, she was mostly confined to a wheelchair, paralysed on the left side and unable to form coherent sentences, although she was aware of what she wanted to say. She suffered a few epileptic attacks and general poor health until recently when she became fully incontinent and extremely immobile. She finally suffered another stroke and spent almost a week unconscious from a massive cerebral haemorrhage before passing away.

Dad was only 54 when he died. Mum was only 66. I finally managed to quit at the beginning of the year after smoking for almost 20 years Tobacco should be criminalised.