I didn’t plan to smoke a cigar that day. I didn’t even really know how.
But the box was there.
And the waves were there.
And the grief had grown too big to keep inside my own chest.

It was a cold day on Cannon Beach, Oregon — the kind of gray, wind-tossed afternoon that feels like the world is holding its breath. I’d been walking alone for a while when I sat down on a piece of driftwood, pulled the cigar out of my coat pocket, and lit it with shaking hands.

It was a Macanudo — one of the originals. Mellow. Classic. Unassuming.
But it lit more than just tobacco that day.

It burned into me.

🕯️ For the Child I Held Too Briefly

It had been a few months since we lost our first child. A son. A tiny soul I had imagined growing into a life of scraped knees, bike rides, and teenage eye-rolls.

I never got to hear him cry.
Never changed a diaper.
Never sat up with him during a fever.
Never said, “I’m proud of you,” even though I already was.

I had held him. Briefly.
And then the world moved on, like it didn’t know what had happened.
Or maybe like it didn’t know what to do with me.

Grief can be loud in the middle of the night, but in the daylight it gets quieter — polite even. It waits in the gaps of conversation. It hides behind casual greetings. It slips into your coffee like a bitter sweetener no one asked for.

🚬 A Cigar I Didn't Deserve

I didn’t think of myself as a “cigar guy.”
I wasn’t celebrating.
I wasn’t trying to make a statement.
I just needed… something.

Something to hold. Something to light. Something to let go of.

That Macanudo wasn’t about flavor or technique. I wouldn’t have known a proper draw from a paper straw. But in that moment, on that beach, I learned something no one teaches you:

Sometimes smoke can carry pain to a place where words can’t follow.

The first few puffs were awkward — like grief itself. I wasn’t sure I was doing it right. My throat wasn’t ready. My hands weren’t steady. But the act of it — the ritual — gave me structure when everything else had gone slack.

🪵 The Beach, the Burn, the Silence

The wind was pushing inland, and the sky couldn’t decide if it wanted to rain. Haystack Rock loomed in the mist like it had seen every storm before mine — and survived.

I smoked slowly.
Not because I knew that was the point, but because rushing didn’t make sense anymore.

The cigar didn’t fight me. It just was. Steady. Mild. Familiar even though I’d never had one before.

And somewhere in that first third, with salt in the air and grief thick in my lungs, I started to talk out loud. To God. To my son. To the sea.

I said the things I hadn’t been able to say in the funeral silence.
I let the tears fall where no one would see.
I let the ash build — let it mean something.

🕊️ Grief is a Slow Burn

People want you to “move on.” But the ones who’ve been through it?
They know the truth.

You don’t move on.
You move with it.
You carry it, like a scar or a tattoo — faded over time, but always there when you trace it.

That cigar gave me permission to sit still with my grief.
To not fix it.
To not reframe it.
Just to feel it.

Every draw was a sentence in a prayer I didn’t know how to form.
Every curl of smoke felt like a sigh I hadn’t dared to exhale.
And when the cigar burned down to a final ember, I let it go — like a small ritual for a child I never got to raise.

🧠 What It Taught Me

I didn’t walk away from that smoke with closure.
But I walked away with space.
And sometimes, that’s all we need.

The Macanudo didn’t fix anything.
But it held the moment long enough for me to finally show up in it.

I’ve smoked many cigars since. Some better, some bolder, some more complex. But none have ever held the same weight as that first one. ( or so I thought, more on that later)

Because that one didn’t just mark time.
It mattered.

📣 Have You Had a Moment Like That?

Have you ever lit something that helped you carry the weight?
Was it a cigar? A song? A walk in the rain?

Let’s talk. Not just about cigars — but about the stories they hold.

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🟠 And explore more moments like this — right here at The Oasis on Brown's Life

Sometimes the ash tells the story we couldn’t say out loud.

Thanks for letting me share mine.
Pull up a chair anytime — the smoke’s still rising.