Today has been a difficult day. If my grandmother were alive, it would have been her 80th birthday. I would rather not have dwelt on this fact, but other members of my family made it difficult to avoid. I don’t know… she died at 72 and I can’t honestly imagine how she’d be if she were 80. Would she have even wanted to live to 80? I’m not sure, the last two years of her life after the death of my grandfather can hardly have been uplifting. She wasn’t healthy enough to live to 80 anyway, she did well to make it as far as 72. Those last few years really showed me what a dreadful thing smoking can be. (more…)