A/N - My final blog from Charlie, based on images and imagination. R&R appreciated as always :)
When I was about 9, I was scratching though my father's belongings when I came across a tiny box, inside lay a box of matches and another box containing cigarettes. My father was an avid smoker all his life, he would smile and puff away at his cigarette and he would always seem so happy; he looked like a real man. I wanted to be a real man too.
You see when I was young there was no one I looked up to more than my father, Geoffrey Swan, he was the very idea of a male figure, momma adored him and he was always the breadwinner in our house, I wanted to be just like him, always. So when I found the box, I took one cigarette out after much thought and snapped off one match, the boys at school boasted about smoking like it was the thing god intended men to do.
Putting the box back I wandered from the room, heading out back and past momma in the kitchen, moving behind the shed, I took out the thin stick and gazed at it, it was nothing but something you put in your mouth… so why was I scared? Johnny down the road smoked, he was ten. He could do it, so could I.
I struck the match and put the stick to my mouth.
And thus began my love affair with smoking.
Most of my life all I lived for would be a smoke, each time I would puff on it and be happy. I needed nothing else until I met Renee. Renee would shake her head at me, pleading with me to put it out. I would laugh and ignore her; it was the way things were. That is, until the day I got a phone call from momma. Father was in hospital his lungs.
I could not believe her, my big strong dad, so young even now was in hospital, his lungs charred and covered in tar, breathing problems riddling his life. I turned to Renee, her face was etched with concern as I did, I glanced up to meet her eyes and opened my mouth to speak but found I could not. On instinct she came to me, wrapping her arms around my waist and asking me what was the matter, I breathed out very harshly, as though it were my own lungs riddled with cancer…
"Charlie?" she asked very softly after a few moments of silence, I breathed out slowly before I replied, knowing she had to know so that we might make arrangements to go visit him. "My dad's in hospital…"She gasped softly and hugged me closer.
My little Renee. Only three months pregnant with our child. She tried to comfort me, knew how much I looked up to my father and yet all I could long for was the stick that was proving to destroy his life as we spoke. Shaking my head I took a step back from her, barely speaking above a whisper. "I need to be alone. Before we go to the hospital."
Renee's eyes filled with tears then. "Oh Charlie, don't do it. Can't you see? This is a sign, You need to stop… please…"
I shook my head, I needed it. I needed it more than I needed anything, my hand itched for it, my body shook for it, Renee lunged forward the moment I pulled the packet out, grabbing it from my hands and yelling. Renee has never been one to yell, so her voice sounded harsher than any other words.
"CHARLIE SWAN You can NOT kill yourself, I will not let you. Look at your father, think about what it was that did that to him, he's dying Charlie. I will not let you kill yourself the way he has. You are going to be a father. Man Up." With that she took the pack to the bathroom and flushed them all one by one down the toilet, trying all the while not to sob.
I watched her speechless, my hands shaking, not for the need of the things she had thrown away, but for the need for her to be alright. I feared she would hurt herself. Her words had stung but she was so upset and pregnant…
Later that evening we were with my father in the hospital, there he lay, frail in the hospital bed, skin as pale as milk and wrinkled beyond words. His breathing hoarse and laboured. He looked like death had come. I found my eyes filling with tears. My own father… Renee was right… I saw that now.
To this day I have not touched a cigarette. And each time I have longed for one, I remember the way my father looked all through the months before he died. I do not want to end up like that, not while I have my Bella, Renesmee and more to live for…