part of it

I've been traveling on this journey, on my path, if you will, for what seems like an eternity at times and other times it seems like an eye's blink. Today it is a little of both. My mother informed me today that a very close friend of her's whom I have known my whole life has lung cancer. Even though I am trying to hold it in, I am really shattered. I just feel so sad for her and for her wonderful family. They are good people and they don't deserve to have to deal with this right now, or ever, frankly. Its not even my family, but I wish God could take it back. And of course she is a former smoker, so along with the shittiness of being sick, there is the guilt factor, that this was preventable and she did it to herself by smoking. Well, I think it just sucks all around and I'm angry and upset, but I'm not going to choose to smoke cigarettes over it. Fuck that.
I am going to sit down and say a prayer for healing and health for her and another prayer for strength for her family, her children, husband, parents, siblings, and friends. She is one of those women who LIVES her life. She is a light to so many people who know her. The thought of her wasting away in a hospital bed is unthinkable to me. So I'm not going to think about that right now. For now I am just going to concentrate on the fact that she is in a doctor's care and that she is going to get a second opinion, and then move forward from that. I want to wish her back to health, but all I can do if offer my prayers and support and let God take care of the rest. 
And I can count my own blessings. Even if I were diagnosed with cancer today, at least I would have the peace of knowing that I didn't have to go through nicotine withdrawal again. I hate you tobacco and I wish you would die, instead of killing all these people who made the mistake of getting addicted to you. We knew, but we didn't REALLY know. NOW we know, and it may be too late, but at least we know, right? I dunno. I know I'm not going back and I am doing everything in my power to keep myself on the straight and narrow. But it would only take one puff to put me right back there, that is what scares me. I don't want my family to see me get sick and watch me die. I want to go out in a plane crash, or by falling off a sprinting horse, or asleep peacefully in my bed when I'm 110. I want to die an heroic death, free of disease, free of nicotine. God I hope so, but there are no guarantees. I might have already smoked the cancer triggering cigarette, but that isn't going to stop me from relishing my freedom now. All I have is today and it is always my choice how I feel. So I'm going to continue to strive for imperfection in everything, I mean really what other choice do I have?