Why won't mum stop smoking after dad's death? Anne Robinson advises

A reader asks

My mum won’t stop smoking, even after being advised to by her GP.

My dad died of a smoking-related illness a few years ago (ironically, she only took up the habit then).

My boys are teenagers and it sets a terrible example. Despite her being an excellent grandmother, my husband and I are very cross, and obviously I’m worried she will go the same way as my father.

I am at a loss to understand why she won’t listen.

Anne Robinson's reply

I am going to pop into a drawer I have in my study desk, marked Department of Sweeping Statements. Here goes.

When you were a baby, I assume your mother fed you and nursed you, and when you were crying from tiredness rocked you to sleep.

I am also assuming that, when you were a toddler, she bathed your wounds when you fell off a wall, as well as gently coaxing you to keep trying when you were learning how to ride your bicycle.

Doubtless too she tolerated your tiresome teenage tantrums: the door slamming, the screaming, the rudeness.

And later did she not mop up your tears when a boyfriend dumped you?

Since then, your life has blossomed. You are happily married and have a busy home with a supportive husband and noisy teens. Your mother, meanwhile, has lost her life companion.

Being widowed is like walking around wearing someone else’s reading glasses.

The loneliness, the shock, the deep sadness and the feeling that life is not fair can be unbearable. And it can last for years.

She has, as Joan Rivers once said, "no one to do nothing with".

Yet outside, the world seems to be filled with contented twosomes, particularly older couples. She has chosen to soften her bereavement by taking up smoking.

Okay, not her wisest decision, but it hasn’t changed her personality as would heavy drinking, crack cocaine or signing up to a website for one-night stands. Yet smoking generates self-righteousness in many.

As Stephen Fry says, "If you put a dummy cigarette into your mouth on stage, before you even light it, the coughing in the audience will begin."

My views are not formed as a smoker. I gave up smoking on television 40 years ago, on the first National No Smoking Day.

However, I do sometimes think that you can be cruel to your pets, foul to your stepchildren or eat your way to obesity, and no one will view you quite as harshly as a person who still needs a cigarette.

I very strongly believe that in the evening of her years a loving granny should be left with her dignity intact.

She certainly doesn’t deserve to be casually bullied by a judgmental daughter.