Since hearing the news of the passing of actor and director Leonard Nimoy today, I've spent a little time reading about the chronic obstructive pulminary disease that took his life. In doing so, I also discovered how vocal Mr. Nimoy became, following his COPD diagnosis, about the smoking which caused his illness more than 30 years after he quit smoking. I also read how he wished he had never started smoking in the first place.
My father, in an unfortunate parallel, also succumbed to a smoking related illness, and had been a militant reformed smoker ever since the first Surgeon General's warning appeared in Reader's Digest, some 30 years before. My father also lamented having started smoking in the first place, blaming the movies and movie stars of his youth for glamourizing smoking.
Smoking is a terrible scourge on everyone it touches, and it touches far too many. Mr. Nimoy's death, today, is as tragic as was my father's or any other smoker, because they were all preventable. It's inspiring that he, like my father, felt a duty to try to prevent anyone else from suffering the same fate, but tragic that none of their efforts could undo the damage already done to themselves.
And so, I'm writing this entry to beg every smoker, especially those I know and love, to quit smoking as soon as possible. Leonard Nimoy would want you to "live long and prosper," and so do I.
