Geoffrey Turner, 66 (pictured), of Latham, New York, passed away on February 13 after a three-month battle with lung cancer
A smoker who died from lung cancer wrote his own obituary begging others to quit before it's too late.
Father-of-five Geoffrey Turner, of Latham, New York, was a chain smoker of more than four decades.
The 66-year-old passed away on February 13 after battling stage IV lung cancer for the last three months.
In a self-written obituary that appeared in the Albany Times-Union, Turner implored other smokers to kick the habit, telling them 'your life depends on it'.
'I was an idiot who made the same stupid decision, day-after-day, multiple times per day,' he wrote in the obituary that ran on Saturday, February 17.
'I was a smoker and even though I knew it may eventually kill me, I chose to deny the truth to myself.'
Turner went on to say that choosing to smoke cigarettes didn't just hurt himself, but also his loved ones.
'The pain and suffering I caused my family was not worth the perceived "satisfaction" that really did nothing more than waste money, separate me from my family, and eventually destroyed my body.'
Turner's daughter, Sarah Huiest, told TODAY that - according to family legend - Turner found one of his mother's cigarettes for the first time at age two and smoked for the first time at age four.
'He smoked from then until age 24 when he married my mother,' Huiest said.
She said her father began smoking again in the 1990s and made various half-hearted attempts to quit the habit.
'He discussed trying to quit last summer with my mom, but didn't put forth much effort at all,' Huiest told TODAY.
'She tried to get him to quit smoking often, but he was very headstrong and there was very little discussion in
