My father left one cigarette unsmoked

Dear Delyara, My father smoked from the age of thirteen until the morning he died at seventy-six. We argued about it for most of my adult life. I bought patches, hid packets, sent him frightening articles, and once threw an entire carton into the bin while he shouted that I was treating him like a child. Today, clearing his balcony, I found one cigarette tucked behind the ashtray. Unsmoaked. Bent slightly in the middle. The lighter was beside it. I sat in his chair and held that cigarette for almost an hour. For years, I imagined the final cigarette as something I wanted desperately: the one after which he would finally stop. I never imagined the reason he stopped would be death. I could still smell smoke on the curtains. It used to make me angry before I even entered the room. Today, I pressed my face against one of those curtains because it smelled like him. Grief is humiliating that way. It makes you miss the things you spent years begging someone to change. I brought the cigarette home instead of throwing it away. My wife asked why. I said I do not know. Perhaps because it is the only cigarette my father ever owned that did not get to finish what it started.