Remember man that thou art dust...

...and unto dust thou shalt return.

I had a moment of clarity the other night. An epiphany you might say. I was catching up on my blog reading, something which incidentally I am very behind in, when I read this post over on Kate and Lance’s blog. She discussed her brother, who died from aggressive stomach cancer. Due to smoking.

Kate and I have shared a great deal of ourselves with each other over the course of our relationship, but to my recollection (which admittedly isn’t as sharp as some), we’ve never discussed her brother and his sudden, painful death. I have thought of him often, but I never felt I could bring up the subject with my nicotine-stained fingers doing the typing or my nicotine-stained lips doing the talking. Anyway I read that post and realised just how quickly it happened for him, diagnosis and death within months, and I was struck with the thought: “I don’t want to die”. No amount of disgusting warning images or television ads have ever effected me like this.

So I’ve decided to give up smoking. Again. At least for lent, but we’ll see how I go.

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the first day of lent, so it’s perfect timing really. A few weeks ago, I was toying with the idea of giving up smoking for lent, or at the very least cutting down, but it was never a permanent move. Let’s see how long it lasts this time.

The problem is I actually quite like smoking. I’m also petrified of dying. Hopefully the latter wins out.