I was struggling to grieve my father’s Covid death – until, strangely, I smelled cigarette smoke

How cigarette smoke – something I’d always been repelled by – finally unlocked my headful of roiling emotions a month after my beloved father died

I have never been a smoker. Even from a very young age, I’ve been actively repelled by it. I confess I did eventually try a cigarette as a drunken student, largely due to peer pressure, and ended up with a scorched larynx and a mouth that tasted like a neglected car’s exhaust, which just reaffirmed my opinions on the matter.

So it was quite surprising when, nearly two decades later, an encounter with secondhand cigarette smoke ended up easing the intense grief I was experiencing. It was May 2020 and the pandemic was well under way. We were in the heaviest lockdown and I was racked with grief. My otherwise healthy 58-year-old father had contracted the virus in March, and succumbed to it in April. My mum and dad had been young parents – they were 20 when they had me, I’m 40 now. When he died, I couldn’t be with him, or help in any way. What updates were possible were relayed to me second- and third-hand from desperately overwhelmed medical staff. When his condition deteriorated beyond all hope of recovery, I had to say goodbye to my father via WhatsApp. From my kitchen. With 20 minutes’ notice. It was, undeniably, hellish.

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