139. Promises to Keep!

I wonder what Dad would have done if I had not bound him with the promise never to put a cigarette to his lips again. I simply told him, “From tomorrow onwards, Dad, let’s smoke together. I am sure that would make you happy?” Dad was petrified of his daughter getting into this deadly habit and hasn’t touched a cigarette since then. But he is sick now, terribly sick and the doc says it was because of his smoking habit as a young man.

But before Dad gave up smoking, every 31^st of December at 12am, I would make him promise to quit smoking and he would sincerely nod his head in affirmation. His loud exclamation of, “From today onwards, I quit smoking”, makes me smile in sheer happiness. However, a couple of days later, when I find a familiar smell in the veranda, I know for sure that Dad is smoking on the sly again. It saddened me but I was helpless till I found the smart solution of ‘smoking together’.

However, these days when I tell my friends to quit smoking and reprimand them for breaking a promise they made a couple of months back, the only thing they tell me with aplomb, “Promises are meant to be broken.” But let me tell you that today, no right thinking woman likes a man with a cigarette in his hands. It’s no longer a manly thing to do. Promises are meant to be kept. It feels great to be committed for a reason.....