Over the past 10 days, I have lived out of a rolling suitcase spotted with hurried drops of airport coffee. I fled Fresno’s summer-like temperatures and stumbled into Iowa Hawkeye territory, in 20-degree temperatures, sporting jeans and a Bulldog T-shirt.

I spent nine nights on an old springy twin mattress in the room formerly belonging to my dead great-grandmother. The 20-pound calico cat that survived her kept my feet warm while I dreamt within walls adorned with glued puzzles of teddy bears, framed with frilly pink lace.

I brushed my teeth in a bathroom that was dressed in flowery 80s décor. I traveled down foreign streets painted with homes from the 1800s that wore coats of pastel purples and blues.

Leaves from fiery red-orange trees were sprawled across lawns and stuck to the bottoms of shoes and in the hoods of coats. The scenery was striking — something pulled from a coffee-table book or a Reese Witherspoon film.

Every one of my meals was on wheels, provided by none other than conveniently located fast-food joints, or a swarming hospital cafeteria.

The one time I did sit down at a restaurant ended in disappointment — I know now that California is home to the best Mexican food.

Iowa is also home to my grandfather, a 73-year-old Air Force veteran with a tender heart, stubborn character and blackened lungs — a result of his emphysema.

My trip to Des Moines was anything but a vacation. It was an opportunity for chance and change, for shining hope on a situation in which I was powerless. A goodbye, if nothing else.

Two weeks prior to boarding my United Airlines flight, my mother anxiously asked if I would do something for her: Take some time off to be by her side as she faced her father’s worsening health.

Eager for a change of scenery, I told her I would go. Looking back, I know that I was unprepared for what I would encounter during my time in Iowa’s capital.

All of the illuminated trees and Victorian houses in the Midwest would not mask what was happening within my grandfather’s home — within his tired body.

My mother and I spent the days in his smoke-filled home. I sat on a dusty plaid couch and drank coffee and laughed, not admitting that my eyes burned and my nostrils stung.

Although my body disagreed, my mind felt at home as our old souls let loose and their small-town lifestyle brought a comfort I wish I had known back in California.

The joy diminished each time my grandfather lit a cigarette. With a tube in his nose and a combustible oxygen tank at his side, he continued to smoke. Sometimes a pack per day.

His frame was 10 times smaller than I remember. As a child, I thought he resembled Santa Clause — rosy cheeks, a jolly belly and bright blue eyes that contrasted with his gray hair.

He was always sporting a pair of suspenders. Nobody looked better in suspenders than Grandpa.

Ten days ago, when I hugged him for the first time in six years, he felt brittle and was unusually thin. His beard was scraggly, like a mountain man, and his cheeks were gray like the Iowa sky.

He was dressed in worn striped pajama pants, no suspenders, and never left his swiveling chair in the dining room.

His eyes, however, were still as blue as I remember.

My mother and I spoke every “smoking kills” cliché in the book. By the end of our first visit, he knew well where we stood.

As I watched him inhale and cough, then exhale and cough some more, I became inspired. As a smoker of four years, I thought to myself, “How can I sit here and encourage him to quit while I am in his backyard lighting up?”

I was a hypocrite and my preaching was pointless. So, then and there, I dropped my dirty habit in hopes of dodging the fatal disease dwelling within his dead lungs.

I talked to him about my hasty decision, and with a cigarette stuck to his bottom lip, he said, “Good, honey. In the end, the relaxing burn in your throat is not worth your life.” I wish he felt the same about his life.

After a week of mood swings and mad cravings, I felt I had conquered the habit that had previously owned my body and my wallet. Grandpa continued puffing away as my mother and I realized that our begging would have little effect.

One day before our scheduled trip home, one of my aunts divvied our share of my deceased great grandma’s china plates and tea sets. With a trunk full of Norman Rockwell coffee cups and German-crafted dishes, we drove 30 minutes north to show Grandpa — only to find him unconscious in his favorite chair, facedown on his kitchen table.

Sparing the unpleasant details, I can say that it was a horrifying moment — I think it was the most horrifying moment I have experienced. Having to dial those three dreaded numbers for the first time in my young life was debilitating.

My hands were clammy as I tried gripping the phone. My voice trembled — no — my entire body trembled with fear as I answered the operator’s questions.

“Is he breathing?” Barely.

“Is he responding to your voice?” No.

“Is he moving?” Not at all.

Forty-eight hours passed before he was fully awake and alert. My mother and I spent hours by his side at the intensive-care unit, talking to him and praying for him — mostly praying.

Those who praise the power of modern medicine should also praise the One who created it, and we did. My grandfather was delivered from his unconscious state and though he struggled to breathe, he was alive and I finally exhaled.

When I embarked on this trip, I was unprepared in every sense — mentally, emotionally, physically and beyond. I never expected to learn a life lesson, or to witness what pain a single habit can inflict on the human body and everyone around it.

Picturing me hooked to two or three machines, with tubes in my nose and my family at my bedside — this is not what I wanted for myself. Or for them.

Before this experience, I had no intentions of quitting smoking anytime soon. Of course thoughts of lung cancer and a shortened life crossed my mind. But fearful thoughts alone will not stop an addiction from taking its course, and eventually, my life.

I went and I saw, and I was changed. And I now urge others to consider the option. I witnessed the strongest of men, who had always been full of life and lived fully, wither into a complete state of nothingness, in body and mind at one point.

My grandfather’s emphysema will never go away. His lungs no longer serve their God-given purpose, and because of these recent events, his heart is irregular and constantly monitored.

His deep voice is now soft and raspy, and though his memory and humor remain sharp, pieces of my grandpa are missing — and that is enough to change my perception of life and the importance of living it healthily.