Читать книгу An Angel Called My Name: Incredible true stories from the other side - Theresa Cheung, Theresa Cheung - Страница 19

Dad died of lung cancer when he was 62. Mum died of heart disease when she was 67. Like them I was a heavy smoker. When I was growing up, I used to think smoking was kind of glamorous and romantic. I associated it with laughter. When money was tight and they couldn’t buy their cigarettes mum and dad would argue, but when they had them dad would light mum’s cigarette.

I used to steal cigarettes from mum and dad; I don’t think they ever realized. I would go into the bathroom and practise looking sexy as I exhaled. By the time I was 16 I was already smoking at least 20 cigarettes a day. Smoking stopped me eating too much and gaining weight. Whenever I felt nervous smoking gave me confidence.

The first thing I treated myself to when I got a job was a beautiful gold lighter with my initials inscribed on it. As the years passed and anti-smoking legislation began to take hold I enjoyed smoking more than ever. There was an instant sense of camaraderie among the smokers clustered in tight-knit groups outside buildings. I didn’t have to try hard to make friends.

At the age of 33 I started to get a cough just like my mother. It was hard to run for the bus, up a flight of stairs or after my four-year-old son without struggling for air.

About a month after my dad died, I was sitting down, exhausted, in front of the TV and lighting up with my gold lighter. Wondering how I was going to take care of my son, handle my fulltime job as a PA and look after my mum who was now wheelchair-bound after a stroke, I had a sense that my father was sitting beside me. Unnerved I grabbed another cigarette and reached for my gold lighter. It had vanished. I tore the sofa apart but couldn’t find it anywhere. It still hasn’t turned up to this day.

Over the next five years mum’s health rapidly deteriorated. The night before she died she begged me to stop smoking, and told me she didn’t want me to end up like her. She didn’t want her grandson to always be able to tell when I was coming because he could hear my hacking cough. As she lectured and pleaded all I could think of was going outside to light up. This is something I guess only a smoker can understand.

I never felt more alone after mum died. I missed her laugh, her love, even her cough. I smoked more than ever as somehow it made me feel closer to her. Then strange things started to happen. I would buy a pack of cigarettes and find them missing from my shopping bag when I came home. If I was outside matches would never light and lighters would never work. Or I’d start coughing so badly I couldn’t keep a cigarette in my mouth long enough to smoke it. And then when I finally managed to light up something would distract me; the phone would ring and there would be no one there, pictures would fall off the wall or a light bulb would blow. It really freaked me out.

Then when I was sorting out mum’s things I found a letter addressed to me. In it she begged me once again to quit smoking for my own sake and for the sake of her grandson. She didn’t want my life to be cut short like hers had been. She wanted me to write a list of all the things I wanted to do. She wanted me to set a date to quit.

Mum’s letter got to me. I circled a day to quit on my calendar and as I did I felt a bolt of energy go through my body. My parents were there with me, spurring me on. A day before the date I was in a panic. I had been a smoker for as long as I could remember. Cigarettes kick-started my day, kept boredom away, helped me feel confident, helped me think and helped me chill out. How could I give up? Cigarettes were my life. I remembered my mum’s letter. I thought about all the things I wanted to do. I wanted to run the marathon. I wanted to learn the piano. I wanted to surf.

On the day I was to quit I woke up sweating. Then I closed my eyes and I saw my mum and dad hugging me and telling me they would give me strength. I wasn’t alone. It was incredible. In that instant I knew I was going to do it. I felt calm and in control and surrounded by love. I wasn’t doing this alone. My parents who had been through so much with me were with me now.

In the hours that followed I had my moments of weakness, especially when things weren’t going well or my son was playing up. But every time I felt tempted to grab a cigarette a voice in my head, my mother’s voice, asked me how a cigarette would help make things better.

With the help of mum and dad I got through the first and hardest day. After that, as the nicotine passed out of my bloodstream I felt it being replaced by a new sense of energy and fun. Before I quit I was smoking 50 cigarettes a day. I feel more alive now. I am tasting food for the first time. I can smell the flowers again. I feel young, like a child learning everything for the first time: how to drive without a cigarette, how to talk without a cigarette, how to see the world around me without a cigarette. It’s like being finally freed from a cage. Being a non-smoker means breaking free. I used to be a slave to cigarettes and they controlled my life. Now, I enjoy fresh breath, more money, dating non-smokers, a cleaner home and no more stale smell in my car. I look forward to my new life and, best of all, my son will no longer have to breathe in second-hand smoke.

The only good thing that I got from all those years of smoking was this great feeling of victory I got when I finally quit. I couldn’t have done it, though, without the love and guidance of mum and dad. I know they are still with me every step of the way. They are helping me live out my intended years instead of coughing myself to an early grave. Supported by their love, I am a non-smoker today and will be a non-smoker for the rest of my life. The three of us will make sure of that.

This is another story that shows how angels can be messengers and teachers. Samantha, a catering assistant, tells how her guardian angel lightened her life; quite literally.