"A Cigarette that bares a lipstick's traces . . ."

The sight or smell of a cigarette repels me.

Wretched.

Disgusting.

Downright stinky.

Josefina Aguilar, Oaxaca Mexico

Curiously, two of my most cherished memories are of my mother, her cigarettes, and her smoking accoutrements.

My mother and her cigarettes.

I can’t recall her brand.

I can only recall the graceful way she embraced the cigarette, never inhaling.

How her perfectly manicured hands with long slender fingers held it horizontally, her wrist angled to the right, her little finger curled inward, her elbow resting on the nearby end table.

How the smoke encircled her head like a wreath, like Santa’s.

On my coffee table, her ashtray—her favorite ashtray—glimmers in the sunshine of the south facing arched window.  A vide poche from Daum, France. Molded, translucent glass—shades of yellows, golds, and celadon, simply shaped resembling an open flower. 

Often when she placed her cigarette there on the end table, I would notice a lip print from the Revlon Fire and Ice lipstick she wore. I can remember wondering how that would feel. Kissing a cigarette. More importantly, how would it taste or smell?

The filthy habit seemed so graceful her hands. Didn’t seem like it could be bad. Distasteful.

One morning, something shiny and silver appeared on the coffee table in our Dallas, Texas home’s living room, near Mom’s ashtray. I knelt close and picked up an elegant slim object, about the size of my pencil case. I turned it over and over in my hands marveling at the floral design, which I would later learn was Art Nouveau Floral Décor, characterized by swirling and asymmetrical shapes—flowers and other natural forms borrowed from nature and graceful, elegant curves called Whiplash.

Gently, I opened the case—the inside as beautiful, if not more so, than the outside. A silver lever stretched across the inside of the top which when I pulled and released it, it sprang back into place.

My charming mom was given this stunning gift—a sterling silver cigarette case—by my dad’s boss, a man I really didn’t like. A large, bombastic walrus-shaped person who seemed to have some weird power over my father in my pre-teen mind and smelled of whiskey.

I did like—actually loved—watching my mother take her filtered cigarettes from the packet and one by one place them in a row filling the case. Eighteen across the bottom and eighteen across the top, held in place by the lever.

Mom would give up smoking when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at age thirty-nine. At age ninety-four, she would be cited as the “oldest living breast cancer survivor” by the American Society in San Diego. A gracious, courageous, and oldest living breast cancer survivor to me and all those who adored her.  

Two treasures now in my living room. A mix of memories—lovely and not so lovely. But somehow, overriding the smell of cigarette smoke in the air, it’s the memory of my mom—her grace, her charm, and her beauty—that wafts in my mind.

Charline Gardner

 Happy Mother's Day, y'all.