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It's real.
When I was a kid, I cared. I cared so much. She would be kind to me, nurture me. She'd make sure I had food and that I got to school on time. She cared.

When she was smoking, she didn't.

I don't think she was conscientious or knowledgeable enough to think about the secondhand. She really didn't seem to care how it infected her insides, at least for a long time. I tried to get her to care for years. I tried everything I could think up. She never listened. Would turn a blind ear. It was getting frustrating trying with an immovable force. I tried to show her to the path she deserved: a good quality of life and health, without the vice. I guess my attempts were not good enough, valid enough, to make her quit. It was addiction, and I couldn't pry it from her hand without her trying to pick another in the other hand, prying me off. I stopped trying. I always knew what was coming, but it still was a significant shift when it became real. All that preparation I had done for years.. The disease seized her, and I didn't react in shock. I had told her this could, would, happen if she didn't quit. She didn't take me seriously. Addiction doesn't hear you telling it to stop. It feels an ache when it is lacking. Wanting and itching inside your bones, an extreme desire of the worst. It's can be the most difficult thing to ignore, you just want the itch scratched so you can get on. But, it is not impossible. So the repercussion came in the form of the disease, and soon after, she took it all seriously. It was much too late to take it seriously.. She never scratched that itch again. I would have never known she was afraid of death; she was always scratching, seemingly without too much thought. I never knew how she felt about it. I was so delighted when she quit it, and it shook my core that it took being she would wither instantly if picked up again for her to do so. I wish they would have told her this years and years earlier.
Every day, I'd pass her pained form, this predicament which she had put herself in. All I could do was watch. While it was horrible, I couldn't help thinking, she had done this to herself. If she hadn't, she none of her loved ones would be sitting around here, trying to pull her back to a semblance of normalcy. Addiction isn't an easy thing to fight through, but. I wish she had actually tried to fight it. She didn't try. All of the times with her were filled with complaints and unhappiness, and it didn't seem that her vice was helping. She got out there and explored the things she wanted. I wasn't even aware whether she wanted to go out and do things.
Months passed, and I thought she was getting better. Everyone did. She had seemed more upbeat and she could walk around frantically like she always had. I think her mood had improved without the scratching.

But then, suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, it got worse again this past week.

Tonight, it's over.

The last word I remember saying to her was a greeting. "Hi." We weren't close.

And now she's gone.

I don't know how to feel. I didn't want it this way. It's over for us all eventually, but I didn't want it to be over in this way. This one hundred percent preventable way. Our last few years together weren't the greatest, we didn't have anywhere near the bond we did when I was a kid. I still cared about her quality of life. I did. The her I knew as a child is someone I will try to keep in my memory, whenever I think of her. The heart was something I needed as a kid.

Good night.