Now that I'm gone, I tell you , don't smoke.

~Unknown

This is the story of my brother, Blaze Smith, who died of lung cancer 5 years ago.

I think the reason Blaze started to smoke was that our parents did it, and he surrounded himself with friends like our parents too.

Before Blaze started to smoke he already knew that cigarettes contain over 4,000 chemicals, and 69 were cancer causing chemicals.

He once told me that he didn't want to follow our parents path, but in the end he lost the fight and started to smoke.

When he started to smoke I asked him "Why," and his reply was simple, he said, " It helps relieve the stress," the same excuse our parents use.

He believed that since our parents and his friends never had any brain, liver, or kidney damge, that he would also be fine.

I warned him that when he gets cancer in his lungs, bladder, skin, kidney, and many other types of cancer it would be to late, and he told me that I was to uptight and should try it too.

When he told me that, I knew that the Blaze I knew before was gone, and the new him could careless what would happen in the future.

Later on we found out that Blaze had developed chronic bronchitis, the doctor told him he needs to stop smoking before it gets worse, but he still continued to smoke.

He use to play football and basketball, but after he started to smoke he struggle to keep up with all the other athletes so he just quit playing sports, because he couldn't give up the cigarettes.