The matriarch of at least a thousand kids, Papaw (my great-grandfather) sits on Heaven’s pedestal, still the light of the family. Being an orphan, a farmer and a gambler was hard, but there was always light at the end of his tunnel: a match burning the tip of a Marlboro Red. Growing up in the renaissance of American cigarette advertising, he lived the now-romanticized life of a hardworking man that came home late to a made-dinner, spanked his kids for F’s, and paid the bills (the ones he didn’t gamble away). In his world, a cigarette was a reward, and you were damn lucky if you had one. I find it beautiful that in less than 60 years, a reward can become a punishment; in 1960, a cigarette was given out as a reward for doing your chores. Now, parents say, “now if you don’t finish your homework I’m gonna make you smoke a whole pack of cigarettes”. It doesn’t matter how small or insignificant your reward may seem to other people in other times in other places in other stages, because a reward will always taste damn sweet—even if it literally tastes like shit. So every time a cigarette drops from Heaven and lands in between my fingers, it is a reminder of the hard-working testicles and ovaries I came from and that the smallest things can bring you the most joy.

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more