Old now, but ****, it's like I told my father-in-law after he had a
quadruple bypass at 81 because of clog arteries. We were discussing a
Thanksgiving menu and I asked him about what his diet restricted, and then
took it back. I said, ****, you're 81 years old, have new, unclogged
connections to your heart, and if you want Virginia country ham, who can
tell you not to? After all, it took him 81 years to get clogged arteries.

If a person chooses to take up a bad habit after quiting and getting sick
afterwards, particularly in the case of cancer, then I say all the better
for them. Once cancer sets in, in my small experience of numerous family
members changing their lifestyles and still dying of cancer, then **** it.
Go for whatever you want to. My sister has MS and it's a genetic thing,
which means I may be susceptible, but certainly means she's not likely to
have a real happy life from now own. Cancer runs in the family, smoking or
not. I'm 54, have great kids and grandkids, and I often wonder if the old
joke is correct. You know, the one where the guy is at the doctor and asks,
if I quite smoking, eat right and give up women will I live longer?, to
which the doctor says, no, but it will seem like it.

I fault Valerie for all those years of working to change Eddie and then
giving up. She signs his death certificate by doing so because she was the
only governor on his motor to self destruction.

The point of self realization is that all of us only live until the ripe old
age of death, and the most diligent of us can go before their work shows
that they had it right. On the one hand we have Jack LaLane (89) still
doing exercises and we lost Jim Kick (46) after all his running. My
grandfather died of cancer of the lungs and never smoked a day in his life
(although he worked at the Treasury Department with all that paper fiber)
and my father quite smoking 30 years ago and just got cancer of the lungs 3
years ago (although it appears he has beat it with the new treatments that
most people can't get because they don't have good insurance).

Some people die young, some people die old. George Burns, by the way the
government talks about health, should have died well before he hit 100 (5
stogies a day and a fifth of bourbon), but there it is. 14 year old kids
get hit by lightning in a clear blue sky environment after a football
practice (happened just up the road), and Eubie Blake was playing piano
after his 100th birthday and went home and died (as did Ketter Betts just a
couple of months ago at 79).

The problems between humans comes when one person places their ideals and
concerns upon another. Makes no difference in terms of death. When you
marry someone you've chosen to spend your life with them, whatever length of
life that would be. Try to surmise that one person has the ability to
change another's inevitable meeting with death through cajoling or threats,
whatever, is just a smokescreen. I can no more say that my stopping smoking
is going to save me tomorrow from getting killed in an accident, even if
it's slipping in my shower than I can say my continued smoking would be the
cause of killing my wife because she got creamed by a car going 60 miles an
hour and had a flat tire.

Eddie would be the "enabler". Valerie had the choice of sticking with him
or not. Children learn all kinds of lessons from their parents, and most
times the parents don't even have a clue of what it is the children learned.

Jeez, life is life. It lasts as long as it does for each individual. If
each individual caused their death then we may be able to distinguish what
would kill a person, but since people die daily by means unforeseen to
others, it's impossible for any one person to take on the responsibility for
another's death or not forcing the other to live, much less feel that they
have the right to give up on their pledge of "for better or for worse". I
can just imagine George Burns and Gracie Allen in the 1930s with the
"supposed" information our government gives us about drugs, healthy foods,
etc., and Gracie would have given George **** for his lifestyle. But George
lived to 100 and Gracie died in her early 40s.

Obviously I take the pledge of marriage seriously, and I have concerns about
my wife's health due to circumstances she apparently can't control. To give
up now would be a wasted opportunity to have every opportunity to love the
woman I've promised to love until we die, and probably far beyond that. My
wife's personal struggles aren't a reason for me to cut myself loose because
it would mean I couldn't say "good morning" everyday, and we couldn't share
our separate experiences of the day. It means we couldn't sit and watch a
sunset that might be the last sunset, and it means that we wouldn't be
together.

Valerie leaves Eddie because she wants to, not because of any other reason.
This is the bane of an easy divorce. The real question is whether one has
the intestinal fortitude to make everyday just one day longer that you have
with one you love. In terms of crime, 62% of all women die at the hands of
the ones they love. In terms of those who have lost someone they love to
changes of mind or divorce, I don't think there's any real statistics, but
my guess is that once you lose someone you truly love, you're more likely to
allow yourself to die than you would be if you were still together. The
point being that with Valerie's leaving, she more than likely put the last
nail into Eddie's coffin, even if it takes five or ten years.

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio
http://blogs.salon.com/0004478/
"Is our children learning?"
President George W. Bush
"Green/Pace" wrote in message
k.net...

"Z_2K" wrote in message
. ..

"eric" wrote in message
news:KESsf.7835$D43.1684@trndny06...
Actually, I think it was the other way around. She left because he had
started hitting the sauce again.
eric


I thought the 'sauce' was his recovery crutch..that his jones was
slightly
more potent.


Valerie said on the Opra show, that she was not going to be the "enabler"
any more.
Eddie had started "SMOKING" again. He had just had part of his tongue
removed from cancer.
The drinking was less of the problem at the "that" time. But was part of
the
overall problem. "HIS EGO"!
She wanted their son to "not" see his father die in flames so to speak.
That's all I got.
Texas Blue