Imagine
- Imagine being twelve and your first dip. Dad lets you do it around the garage with him as you tinker with his tools pretending to help. Pretty cool, huh?
- Imagine being fifteen and your friends start hanging out at your house 'cause it's okay to dip around your parents. Heck, most of their parents haven't a clue about the dipping ritual that happens.
- Imagine being nineteen and working with your father at his business. Both still dipping and enjoying the conversations you spend because you feel a connection, ...... even if it has to do with dip.
- Imagine finding your first sore, ..... gums raw but you still keep using. Dad says its happened to him but it'll go away. So you pack it to the other side of your mouth. It feels somewhat less painful that way.
- Imagine being twenty-one and the birth of your first and only son. You're so nervous but you need some dip to take that edge off. You ask the nurses for a cup to spit into. And while holding your son, you remind yourself to get another can after you leave the hospital since you're out.
- Imagine being twenty-seven and your now six yr old wants to go hunting with you, like he has many times before but you tell him he can't go. He's unable to since there's going to be alcohol and a little party later at a friends house. Your son cries not understanding why Daddy won't take him hunting. You promise to take him another time. Maybe next weekend. Your wife reassures him as you scoot out the door without him noticing you've left.
- Imagine hunting most of the day while drinking beer. Later that evening, you're at a friends house you've known since grade school. You guys start playing a little poker and get somewhat carried away with the shots of liquor, ... now being passed around.
- Imagine feeling a bit dizzy and resting on the couch since the room won't stop spinning. Some time later, others pass by, your friends and laugh at you 'cause your drunker than shit. They believed you've passed out since they can hear you snoring.
- Imagine being so intoxicated to the point that you've swallowed your snuff. And what they believe is snoring is actually you gasping for air since your wad of dip is lodged in the back of your throat. You're unable to move, .. unable to signal for help. At that moment ... you die .. slowly .. not from cancer .. but from choking on your own wad of dip.
- Imagine in the morning your friends leaving for town; not wanting to wake you. One of them returns by mid-afternoon. Your wife is somewhat concern since you haven't called. He finds you in the same spot and to his shock, ............. you're unresponsive.
- Imagine leaving behind your wife and son, your mother, father and sister, leaving behind your friends. One being me, who remembers playing truth or dare and having to kiss you. We were fourteen then. ---- (incidentally that's around the same time I started dipping secretly)
- - Now I want you to sit back and imagine if cancer is truly the only culprit that can 'cause your death.
This is a true story.
Jay had a kind heart but was stupid to think he wasn't addicted. He believed he was invincible to cancer; ... to death. Yet sadly he died by asphyxiation.
-mls
Rest in peace, Jay Archibald!
I hope you're death wasn't in vain and by telling your story will help someone take that first step to quit.
(I posted this last year. I post it again as a reminder.)
