Once Upon a Time We Made Ashtrays for Mother’s Day

Mom was never without a cigarette. A long slim menthol. She held it between two fingers, waving it about as she spoke, writing in air with the hot red tip. She cooked with it, gripping it between pursed lips as she stirred, the ash getting long and precarious. Who knows how often it fell into the dish, she wouldn’t tell us if it did. She would lie. She lied so easily.
 
She wrote us notes to give to the corner store to buy packs for her. Her hand-writing was beautiful, long and flowing. I practiced it for days so that I could forge notes when I skipped classes.  It changed when she got cancer, when the steroids stole her mobility and capacity to think straight. She wrote notes to herself on anything she could find, envelopes, cards, the margins of the newspaper. Her letters were ragged and disjointed.
 
She never gave up her cigarettes. Even when she was weak and bringing it to her mouth to take a drag was a herculean effort. The cigarette would sit between her two tobacco-stained fingers, burning down to the filter, until someone remembered to take it from her and put it out.