One in Half a Million

Suddenly, he’s gone.
Our good friend Frank Kennedy passed away Friday Night after a 2 month battle with lung cancer. Our thoughts go out to his wife Annette and their family.

You probably didn’t know Frank. If not, you missed knowing one unique individual.
We loved being around Frank and Annette. Frank was a big man with an even bigger heart. I know that’s a cliché, but I’ll defend its use in this case. When he was one of the Ford Dealers I serviced, I spent many hours with him learning and listening. He was a great story teller, whether it was about his days as a policeman in the DC area, or his many years in the car business. I will always remember the 10 year battle he fought trying to thrive and survive as a car dealer in a small wonderful community in Maryland that he and Annette had made their home. He was a short distance from a huge dealership, but through legendary perseverance he carved out a respectable business against the odds. How many people still get up and go to work at 5:30 every morning? Well Frank did, every day. And he loved it.

What made Frank a great salesperson was something you don’t see anymore. He would look you in the eye and absolutely absorb what you were saying. His smile would light up when yours did. His eyes would sparkle when yours did. He was just a joy to be around. He listened to you and you listened to him.

We know how much his family is hurting today because Frank was a person that enjoyed life to the fullest, and you just came along for the ride. I could tell all the stories about going out to eat with Frank where he inevitably ended up in the kitchen talking to the chefs about how great the food was and how much he enjoyed it. We would be standing at the front door, going "where's Frank?" When we left the restaurant we had eaten great food. Frank had made new friends.

I remember after taking Frank to Il Mulino in New York City, we were having a discussion about where we'd like to eat our last meal. I was so proud that Frank said Il Mulino - that was the ultimate, that he had enjoyed that meal so much. I'd have given anything to take Frank there one more time, for one more ride.

I often hear the term “wrongful death.” It makes me wonder, what death isn’t? Someone hurts and misses with every passing.
But, what makes this one hurt so much to me is that it was preventable.

Like most who die of lung cancer, Frank was a smoker.

We’ve all lost someone to cancer, and we know how horrible it is.
Breast cancer is an epidemic of the last 100 years.
We’re not sure what causes it.
Colon cancer is reaching epidemic proportions.
We’re not sure what causes it.

Lung cancer?
Well, we’ve figured out what causes it.
Not everyone who smokes gets it, but almost all who get it smoke.

Everyone who knows me knows how much I despise this product. I don’t blame those who smoke. If you’re hooked, you’re hooked, and we know how hard it is to quit.

It is the peddlers who should be ashamed. This is a product solely designed to get you to “have” to use it, not choose to use it. It is chemically enhanced to increase its addictive properties. It is a product that were it presented for market today, would never get approved. They stack the deck to their advantage like no other business in America.
Yet it lives on.

How long?

In the recent health care debate, through all the noise I kept thinking, “Hey – wait a minute, here’s an answer for you – how about let’s stop this tobacco insanity? It would save billions in health care costs.”

We’ve made incredible progress in reducing the effects of smoking, but it lives on as a legal product, that kills an estimated half million people a year in the US, and accounts for 30% of cancer deaths. 30%! Half a Million! That's 1369 a day! I used my calculator.

I have lost friends to cancer. I have friends battling it right now. You do too. For many, it's nothing that they did.
But, to put it in “hurricane” parlance, if you smoke, you’re choosing not to evacuate. Or, to put in in "local" parlance, guns don't kill people, smoking kills people.

It’s a helluva risk, and one that will some day affect people you love and who love you.

So today I rant because I’m devastated that I have lost another friend to this horrible disease. On this day, I apologize if it seems inappropriate, but once again in my life I’m mad and sad.

Good bye Frank. We will miss you like you’d never believe. But I’m also going to wonder about those days we could have spent shooting the bull on your beautiful back porch overlooking that valley.
I’m going to wonder what could have been if there wasn’t really an evil empire.

How Long? How Long?