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My daughter would like to quit, she says. We both know the statistics are against her; most people who try to quit smoking do not succeed. There is a deep hurt that I feel as a mother. Some days it is a feeling of futility. I remember how carefully I ate when I was pregnant, how patiently I taught my daughter how to cross a street safely. For what, I sometimes wonder; so that she can wheeze through most of her life feeling half her strength, and then die of self-poisoning, as her grandfather did?
我女兒說她想要戒煙。我們都知道統計數字對她不利；大多數想要戒煙的人都沒有成功。作為一位母親，我深感痛苦。有時候，我有一種無能為力的感覺。我記得自己懷孕時，吃東西是多么小心，我又是多么耐心地教我的女兒怎樣安全地過馬路。有時候我會想，自己那樣做是為了什么？難道是為了她今后大半輩子費力地掙扎著呼吸，然后像她外公那樣自己把自己毒死嗎？
But, finally, one must feel empathy for the tobacco plant itself. For thousands of years, it has been venerated by Native Americans as a sacred medicine. They have used it extensively—its juice, its leaves, its roots, its (holy) smoke—to heal wounds and cure diseases, and in ceremonies of prayer and peace. And though the plant as most of us know it has been poisoned by chemicals and denatured by intensive mono-cropping and is therefore hardly the plant it was, still, to some modern Indians it remains a plant of positive power. I learned this when my Native American friends, Bill Wahpepah and his family, visited with me for a few days and the first thing he did was sowing a few tobacco seeds in my garden.
但是最后，我們必須對煙草這種植物施以同情。幾千年來，它都被美洲印第安人尊崇為一種圣藥。他們廣泛地使用煙草——它的汁、它的葉子、它的根和它的（神圣的）煙——來愈合傷口，治療疾病，并將其用于祈禱以及和平的儀式中。盡管我們大多數人都知道這一植物已經被化學制品污染，并因為集約化也失去了其本性，因此幾乎已經不是原來的樣子了，但是一些現代的印第安人仍然把它看作一種擁有積極力量的植物。我是從我的印第安朋友比爾•沃培帕和他的家人那兒知道這一點的，他們來拜訪過我幾天，他做的第一件事就是在我的花園里播了些煙草種子。
