“I miss her every day.”
Chris Lazarus says she lost her mother to cigarettes.
Raili Lazarus was a lifelong smoker whose final years were marked by a steady and serious physical decline. Her lungs stopped working properly, and she had near total blockage in some key arteries.
She suffered from COPD, the basket of respiratory ailments that includes emphysema, a common disease for heavy smokers.
Outings were draining. An hour of walking at the Rose Garden left Raili gasping for breath.
“It’s sort of like suffocating,” said Chris.
Chris watched cigarettes drain the joy and vitality from her mother’s life, one that for years was full of fun, socializing, athletics, and hard work. “At one point she confided to her best friend that she hated living like this.”
“Really this was a woman who enjoyed everything and had tremendous energy. She was a real party animal,” said Chris.
A native of Finland, Raili started smoking in her 20’s. Cigarettes and cocktails fueled her social life in the 50’s and 60’s, which was true for many Americans. She once worked as a journalist, and Chris says her mom smoked in the newsroom with her co-workers. “That’s just what people did,” she said.
Smoking was normal, and few people thought there would be any health consequences. The Surgeon General’s report on the dangers of smoking didn’t arrive until 1964, and even then the findings were controversial.
“People don’t think in their 30’s and 40’s that it’s going to happen to me,” said Chris.
Chris is a registered nurse and is an enthusiastic supporter of efforts to curb smoking, especially among young people. She sees the growth in vaping among teenagers and is alarmed. She knows that smoking is a leading cause of preventable illness in the U.S., and that we all bear the cost of tobacco related disease.
She doesn’t want others to experience what her family did. That’s why she supports the effort to raise Oregon’s tax on tobacco and vape products. The revenue raised will triple the amount of money spent on programs to help people quit smoking and help fund Medicaid. Research shows that raising the price will reduce the use of these products, especially among young people.
“Whatever we can do to keep kids from developing a nicotine habit, starting with vaping and progressing to smoking, we should do,” said Chris.
Raili Lazarus died in 2015.