+ SECOND PLACE is
0Eunice Hwang : 6th Grade / Paramus, NJ / East Brook Middle School

A Smoke-Free Home

        Smoking, it only needs to illness or death. These can lead once happy families to their sorrow...forever. As anti-smoking increases, this world might become a better place. People will become happier, too! Smoking is caused by stress, but isn't smoking making it worse? It gives you lung disease and breathing problems, before you know it you might be in a grave with the guilt of bringing misery to your own family through your pitiful death.
        If you want your family to be healthy, keep your family away from drugs, especially cigarettes. That's how I got my family in perfect shape. When I was three years old, I just loathed the fact that my father smoked. At first, I thought I couldn't do anything to change this bad habit of my father's. However an idea started to flicker in my head, soon the flickering of my idea began to shine more, so I put it to work. I put up signs that said, 'NO SMOKING'or 'DON'T SMOKE', everywhere. My father soon understood my point and started smoking a bit less. I don't know if it were the signs that annoyed him or if it was because of his fatherly love for me, but one day he suddenly stopped smoking. Now I'm twelve years old, so nine years passed. That's how long my father has been fighting against his will, from smoking, just for his family. Just like what he did, sometimes showing your love for your family doesn't mean buying each other great gifts or spending a lot of quality time together, it means suffering a bit and supporting whomever it is in your family or your friends to stop their wrong doings.
       If it is wisdom that you wish your family to possess, keep away from those slim cylinders that will rot your lungs! Anyone would agree that causing some of your family members to get sick through you or whom ever else by smoking isn't wise. Smoking is not only putting the person smoking in danger but also it's putting people close to you in danger also. It pollutes and filths our environment, our atmosphere, and mostly our breathing space. The bitter smell of tobacco burning proves that the taste also might be bitter. This might also conclude for the one who smokes to have a bitter character in them. You would do unwise things with a blackened heart and a throat choked by ash. It's not wise to act stupidly, but it's much more unwise to smoke.
       Any family would gain respect by being an anti-smoking family. They wouldn't be harming themselves with the burning incense of smoke, nor would they be poisoning people around them with the tobacco that's all wrapped up and fired. Respect doesn't come easily. It doesn't mean you gain respect by not fighting or taunting others, it means respecting everything around you by doing what you are able to do to cleanse them.
       Families that are anti-smokers are healthy, wise, and they gain more wisdom, so are others. By not smoking, you're keeping the environment pure and beautiful and this world a better place to live. Not smoking will make a great benefit on your family and this world.