My grandfather died of emphysema.

Twice.

I never met my grandfather, but from what my father tells me, both of his deaths were terrible.

Dale was a self-made man who survived through homelessness with a work ethic that only a Scottish-American in the Great Depression could muster. He fought in WWII, lived to marry a sweet Irish nurse, and raised five children on an electrician’s salary.

Dale also smoked. He started young, and he certainly wasn’t denied cigarettes while soldiering in war. The stress of five children wasn’t all that conducive to quitting, either. All of this, plus the general acceptance of smoking in the mid-20th century, meant that my grandfather was a tobacco fiend.

An uncle told me once that my grandfather would play golf, walking the green, swearing to high heaven as if curses could coax his golf ball out of the water. All the while, he would hack. Not cough, not wheeze. Hack. You’ve heard it before: the sound of someone’s lungs screaming, “I’ve had enough!” trying to jump ship and escape the arsenic and carbon monoxide from Dale’s unfiltered Marlboros.

Air wasn’t enough. I imagine a big, silver oxygen tank shining at his side, covered in fingerprints from the oldest grandchildren poking at their reflections in the metal, wondering why Grandpa wouldn’t play.

My grandfather was taken to the hospital in the night. He stopped breathing. His wife and grown children mourned over his body. Mind you, these are Irish-/Scottish-American men and women, forged in self-sacrifice and toughened through poverty. Tragedy is served up with our potatoes and canned tuna. But even my stoic father, uncles and aunt were reduced to tears at the fact that their daddy wasn’t coming home this time.

Or so they thought. Against all odds and to the disbelief of my family (not to mention the hospital staff), Dale rose from the dead, hacking all the way. According to my father, Dale caught his shortened breath, sat up, and said, “What the heck are you all crying about?” I can only imagine how many times my Catholic grandmother crossed herself.

He was given a second chance, but even this sneak-preview of death didn’t keep him from smoking. He was right back on his Marlboros just as soon as he was out of the hospital.

His extra month of life was spent suffocating. He died again, permanently this time. It was turmoil for my family, but this one was easier, they say. My uncle jokes that it was because they had a dress rehearsal the month before, but I know it’s because they got the gift of closure.

Before Dale died, my dad asked his father every question he could. And so I listen to my grandfather’s ghost in a 1980’s tape recorder. He talks about his childhood, his dreams, hopping on freight trains to Oregon.

It seems fantastical, like Dale got a menu of deaths and selected his favorite. Don’t be fooled. It’s horrific. Tobacco killed my grandfather on two separate occasions. He had the strength to live through the first bout, and cigarettes took him all over again. He was always theirs, never mine.

Today, I trained Quit Coaches. I work to save lives now, however many chances you’ve got.