A Commemoration and an Anniversary

Today I have two "anniversaries" to think about, one is my little miniature dachshund passed away, December 31, 2015, and the second is I quit smoking on December 31, 2018.

Cambridge Dictionary defines the word "anniversary" as:

The day on which an important event happened in a previous year.

I sat here and thought about it for a little bit, as to what to call the day that passed that my pup passed with it: "anniversary" or "commemoration" are the most notable two. I think in this case I want to call it a commemoration. But the good thing is that pup went to his forever home 6 years ago.

Me, Cher, and Coffee.jpg

His name was Coffee, and I wrote up a post detailing how we came to acquire him, and you can read that post HERE .

He loved laying there on my leathers and sweatshirt when I got back from a ride. I would come in and stack them there because the closet is just 6 feet away in that hallway. He would come and pull them apart and curl up and go to sleep.

He would wait for me to come home from work because that was his time to go for a walk outside, and every single one of the neighbors knew him and loved him. A lot of my friends would be driving by and would stop and talk to us. One time there was 6 cars lined up in the street and had a short something to say before going home.

Now the second part of this memory is an anniversary. I quit smoking 3 years ago, and have zero desire for a cigarette. I had a hell of a time quitting, even when the Type A bird flu put me in the hospital for a few days in March of 2014 and they didn't think I would leave. But on my last day the doctor that had been taking care of me slapped a nicotine patch on my arm and said that I just quit.

I went home and did not smoke for 4 months, but at my work I always got there an hour early ( always one of the first to get there as I was an early bird ) and made coffee for the "coffee club" of the yard ( I was in charge of it ), and then went outside and fired up the patio heater, and as the guys would roll in, the smokers would go grab some coffee and then come out and have a smoke by the heater.

Well, in the fourth month, I hit one of the guys up and absolved him of the responsibility of any guilt, since he did not offer one to me, but the other way around, I asked. Anyways, to make a long story short, I wound up buying a pack a couple of days later.

But about the end of 2017 I started taking Chantix, and I was supposed to do this and that, which I didn't, and come the end of December of 2018, I ran out of patience with the Chantix and the $10 packs of smokes (even though I had managed to cut it to 1/2 pack a day) and on December 31, 2018 just said, "that's it, I'm done with these things and finished the pack.

I have not even thought much about it, I wish I had never started in the first place, that in itself is a long story, and to make it short, I hated cigarettes and never touched one until I was in the service a long ways from home. But then when I came out of the hospital in 2014 I should have quit then, but did not do it.

Moral of this story is everyone needs to quit, but it can only be on their own timeframe and when they say they've had enough.