Personal Hell

Experiencing a death in the modern age is never easy.

It affects everyone differently, some can shoulder it and move on, others need to cry at least once over it, others even cry hard for a bit, then cry a little more each time the anniversary come around. Some simply move on, not being bothered by the death of a loved one.

James was the latter, death was... Unfamiliar to him, not that he didn't understand exactly. It just never brushed with him, never bothered him. He knew death would come, and even if some form of immortality was presented to him, then it would be sure. But death would come, so he never bothered worrying about it.

He helped those who needed it, helping them get through it in the ways he could do best, even if at times it was just being there to give them a shoulder or person to cry against or scream at.

He had no problems with death... It comes for everything.

How it comes, however, in its different forms is what he had a problem with.

At first, thinking even that was not his problem, but no it turned out to be a problem. A hellish one

James didn't have a good relationship with his parents or siblings, they tolerated each other and that was it. Even his siblings hated the parents, so when the parents passed, they got together to take what they wanted from the wills, and sell the rest. Split the earnings down the middle for the four of them.

But... James was married, happily so. They were going on 15 years, having married directly out of high school, they never fought at all, only small disagreements that didn't bother them.

Stupid arguments are sure just to amuse each other, small stupid ones. But when his wife was gone, he missed it all, even the small annoyances that came with her.

James wasn't attached to animals, and he didn't want children.

Whereas his wife shared his ideals on children, rather to just experience the cool aunt and uncle route with their friends, his wife adored animals in their entirety.

Even overcoming her fear of snakes so when she worked with them, she'd be able to love them as they deserve.

He didn't mind after all, since his wife only got a dog and cat, two dumb animals but god did they make her smile.

She already smiled a lot, but when it came to them, her posting video's of them running into walls or chasing their tails. Posting them to their friends so they could melt over them as well.

Her smile could brighten the darkest moments.

He didn't interact with them much, never really bothering himself other than taking care of them when his wife couldn't.

Taking out the dog in the middle of the night so it wasn't all leaning on her.

Just because he didn't care for them, doesn't mean he didn't care for her, helping them out was a small price to pay for loving her.

Then, it happened. She started to cough, at first, it was ruled as allergies which it was due to her asthma and being allergic to everything.

Taking medication and a few shots occasionally helped tremendously, but the coughing came back a few years down the row.

A lot worse.

After seeing the allergin doctor, they ruled it as her needing to see a general specialist as the tests he could take didn't show anything.

So they sought out another doctor, the general doctor told her to come in for a specialized test, the coughing fits were so bad at times it would cause her to stop just to catch her breath.

She went in for a lot of tests, and they learned it was cancer, lung cancer to be exact.

They got it early so it was treatable, so of course, they did. It showed some progress in getting better, but it was one night when he woke up in the middle of the night did it take a turn for the worst.

His wife woke up in the middle of the night and broke into such violent coughing fit it had him worried, when he went to check on her he found her crying against the toilet when he checked the toilet there was blood.

A lot of blood.

An emergency trip later and they learned the cancer had taken a turn for the worst.

They tried everything, but James got to watch as she got weaker and weaker, the coughing alone took more and more energy.

He hated every moment of it, wishing and preying with every bit of his being that he could take it away from her, even if just a little bit, wishing he could do more in something he had no control over.

He spent all the time he could with her, making it so he could work from home most of the time except for the rare times he had to visit for a meeting.

It was when he was coming home from one of those meetings did he start to feel something was wrong, so he hurried back home. It was when he parked in the driveway did he hear his wife's dog screaming his lungs out. He was trained better than this, he would never scream this loudly, no matter how active it was outside by other dogs, at most he would just do small growl-like woofs.

But hearing this, something he hadn't done since he was a puppy caused him to get out quickly. Leaving his car on and keys in the ignition.

When he got into the house he noticed nothing amiss when he entered the bedroom, she had gotten too weak to move a lot so she was usually in the bed, resting with her fort of pillows.

The dog was in his kennel, like always after a certain time, but it was when he noticed the cat also meowing as if his heart had been removed did he get worried.

He found his wife dead in the bed, a note she had finished a long time ago clenched in her hand.

When he lost her, it was hell. Never had he cried as much as he did as that night, her body clenched in his arms, only letting go when the ambulance grew slowly coaxed him to let go.