Tears In Heaven

© Sweet Kisses™

~*~

"Yes, Mr Richardson, it's cancer."

That was all Kevin needed to hear to stun him into silence, and it kept reverberating through his ears.

Kevin sat facing his bedroom mirror felt his whole life go whizzing past before his eyes. His childhood, his teenage years, adulthood, or what he had more or less experienced of adulthood. His friends, his family, his career, everything that was important to him just all of a sudden rushed to the surface.

Up until this point he had taken life for granted, thinking that he was a person that meant something to the world, therefore he was almost invincible, immortal, even. But that was no longer true. Just one word had wiped that little image of himself clean. Everything that was important and meant something to him just all of a sudden meant more. He didn't know why that was. Or maybe he did and he just didn't want to admit it, for if he didn't admit it, then maybe it wouldn't be true.

But it was true.

He might even be dying.

Kevin became numb in the chair he was sitting in, finding the air-conditioning a hell of a lot cooler than he remembered it to be. A chill ran through his entire body, freezing over his blood, as though he had jumped straight into a sea of ice. He felt his lower lip tremble and small tears filling his eyes, trying desperately to break through and run down his now pale and ashen cheeks.

But he wouldn't let them. He was too strong for that. He was too strong to cry. Or maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was just trying to fool himself in that respect. He didn't want to think about it. He was just too cold, and not just his body, but it was like his mind had frozen over too, as though not really wanting to think about what the doctor had just told him. It was as though his mind didn’t want to respond, or comprehend, what he had been told just an hour before.

He just had too much to live for. He had a great job - a fantastic job, even, great friends, great family, and a great wife. He just had too much to live for.

It wasn't fair.

Wasn't it enough that his father died of the same disease? Wasn't that enough? Why did it have to attack him, too? Was it like history repeating itself? Like father, like son? Wasn't God, if he really existed, fair? Didn't he understand that he had too many years left in himself to experience and live out? Didn't that mean anything? Didn't it mean anything that he didn't even have a family of his own yet? Shouldn't he be given a chance to do that?

It just wasn't fair. It was cruel. Life was cruel. First his father, now himself. But maybe, just maybe, he'd go into remission and he'd be okay. After all, there were plenty of treatments to save himself, and he'd do anything, anything to save his life, to experience a long and happy life and then die old in the arms of his loving wife...

"Cancer." Kevin whispered.

Indeed, it was history repeating itself.

Then came the symptoms that he only knew too well, that occurred in the same way it did with his father. Things that Kevin knew well and was certainly experiencing. Only to himself, of course.

So he had decided to take a quick visit to his doctor and find out just what the causes of his problems were. Of course, Kevin had fooled himself into believing that it was just over-exertion and nothing more, thinking that it was highly impossible to suffer from such an illness at such a young age. After all, he was only just pushing his thirties and he was absolutely in great shape.

Or so he had thought.

But in the back of his mind was the nagging suspicion that it could be exactly what he had feared.

He had kept all this to himself, everything that he was suffering from, everything that he was fearing, he kept tightly locked in the depths of his heart. He didn’t know exactly how to deal with this. Anyone would’ve expected him to deal with something like this with ease, considering that he had been through this once already. And lost his father, as well. But no. Whoever thought of that was so definitely wrong. He couldn’t deal with this. Not now. Not at such an early stage in his life. Not now, when he had just been married a few years earlier. Not now, when he didn’t even have a family of his own to love and cherish and watch grow.

All he knew was that life wasn’t fair.

Life, sometimes, was a bitch.

Kevin felt as though he had a curse. He felt as though he had a death wish. He felt like he was having his heart ripped out of his chest right in front of him. He felt as though there was no justice in the world. He felt as though he were being cheated in the game of life. He wanted life. He wanted to live.

He wanted to live!

That was all he wanted.

He wanted to life long and full, with his wife and children by his side. He wanted children. He wanted to see his children grow. He wanted to see his grandchildren. He wanted to be able to hold them. He wanted to be a wise old man who gave advice to his family and who everybody sought that from. He wanted happiness. He wanted happiness from life. He just wanted the chance to be able to live and be happy. Not fall ill with such a sickness that had an extreme possibility of killing him as quickly as a freight train.

He looked around the room and his head began to spin while his eyes began to fill with unshed tears. It just wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair. He didn’t deserve this. No one did. But certainly not him. Not after losing his father to exactly the same thing. It just wasn’t fair. Why did this have to happen to him? And at such a young age? At such a time when he hadn’t even begun to experience the later years of his life.

This didn’t even give him the possibility of enjoying his older years, to be able to sit back and be content with everything that he had done, created and achieved and enjoy those days of happy reflecting with his children, friends and wife. This was just not fair. At first he had thought he had heard wrong, but after a moment, it all rang very real and true. And instantly he had thought that he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve to be singled out with this kind of destiny. His life was so perfect. His job was great and his wife was the love of his life and soon they had been talking about the possibility of children.

Children. Babies. His children. His babies. Their children. Their babies. Well, there went that idea...

~**~

Kevin stared up at the house before him and suddenly felt gutted after taking a long walk. He loved his house. He loved everything about it. It was like his baby. He loved the interior, all of it decorated in a perfect black and white masterpiece. He loved the exterior, the perfectly manicured grounds surrounding the house. He even loved the gate, which was just a simple security precaution that resembled something of a small metal wall. He loved it. He loved the fact that it held so many memories that belonged to him and his wife.

Most of all, it had been the first home he and his wife had chosen on and lived in together, as a married couple, not just as a de facto relationship. This was the place in where they were really committed to one another, really devoted to another, a place where they had decided to bring up their children in and now for him to think that that might all change was just...

Too surreal.

He didn’t want it to be real. He didn’t want to believe that it was real. He didn’t want to believe that it was true. He had no idea how to tell anybody anything. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t sure if he should just tell his wife the truth and hopefully she’d deal with it in a good way and not make him cry by crying herself. Hopefully she’d be strong enough to deal with it and support him through the process and hopefully see him through it all, right to the end. The end. That would never come.

He was certain of it.

He made a pact with himself that this was not going to defeat him. He would remain living. He would die an old man. He would start a family. He would see them grow. He would see them being born. He would see them take their first step. He would hear their first word. He would see their first day of school, elementary, middle school and high school. He would seem them graduate and move onto college. He would see them graduate from college, too. He would see their children being born. He would hold his grandchildren. He would see them grow, too. He would die old, with his wife in his arms, completely happy and fulfilled.

He would, he just had to.

Kevin opened the front door and instantly his ears were greeted with the sound of slow soul music. He chuckled softly to himself and closed the door quietly behind him, strolling through the hallway and in through the living room. He stopped in the living room, thinking about how much he loved it and how much he loved hand-picking all the furniture and accessories. He felt an overwhelming wave of sadness washing over him. He sighed despondently and slowly walked out of the living room and into the kitchen, where he could hear an array of noises.

He stopped in the doorway and a small, amused smile crossed his face as he watched his wife dance, sing and cook at the same time, to the beat of the music playing in the background. He raised his eyebrows curiously when he watched her pirouette across the floor, something that he had been trying to teach her for the longest time and had never really mastered before.

It had just been, well, too complicated.

She’s obviously been practicing, Kevin thought, shaking his head, his eyes still riveted on her every move.

Kathy, or Katherine whenever Kevin was speaking seriously to her or if they found themselves tangled in an argument, that let her know that Kevin was becoming angry, spun across the floor, her shoulder-length dark hair spinning in the air with her body. Some had said that these two looked like twins. They both had the same dark hair. They both had the same blue-green eyes. They both had the same chiseled features. They both had the same temperament, however their personalities complemented each other. Kevin offered the serious part of the marriage, the more calm side, something he gave her whenever she was flying too high. Kathy, however, was more of a free spirit and taught Kevin how to just sometimes relax and let things deal on their own.

They both liked the same things, to say nothing about each other’s style of dancing. They had met a few years before and after realizing just how perfect, and at the same time how corny, they seemed to be, they both decided on marriage. And from then on, it had been nothing but roses. Sure, they had a few fights, but nothing too dramatic like a lot of married couples did, straining under the pressure of marriage. Marriage, for Kathy and Kevin, had been nothing but a perfect ride on a calm ocean.

But now, that was all about to change.

Kevin stepped into the kitchen and grabbed hold of Kathy’s waist while she had her back turned to him for a split second, whispering into her ear, “Hey, baby.”

Kevin felt a tiny shiver run through her and then she spun around, her face flushed and lighting up with happiness. “Hey!” she exclaimed and wrapped her arms around him. “Missed you, big man!”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “Please, enough with that. It’s redundant.” He peered over her shoulder and stared down at what was sitting on the counter in front of them. “What is that?”

Kathy reached up and touched the tip of his nose with the tip of her index finger. “You’ll just have to find out,” she said cryptically. She gasped suddenly. “Oh, I’ve got something to tell you...”

Kevin nodded. ‘Yeah, so do I.”

Kathy, however, rushed on like a freight train, her face extremely expressive. “I got a promotion! You are now looking at the Vice President of World of Pop Management! Can you believe it?”

Kevin laughed. “Of course I can,” he said softly and kissed her lightly. “You were the best for the job, especially after that whole 'Christina and coke' deal.”

Kathy returned the laugh. “I happen to think that my publicity team and I handled the whole “Christina and coke” thing very well! And after all, it was tough trying to cover up pictures of a twenty-one year old sniffing coke with a group of pimps twice her age and even tougher trying to find an excuse.” She lightly tapped his chest, giving him a mock-stern look. “Are you trying to tell me I don’t do my job, mister?”

Kevin shook his head, holding up his hands to call a truce. “Never!” He gave her a quizzical look. “And by the way, what was the reason you and your publicity team came up with? Just for the record.”

Kathy smiled proudly. “Belated teenage rebellion,” she stated succinctly. “She never had a childhood, never got to be a normal teen, so that was her form of backlash. The media lapped it up like thirsty puppy dogs.”

Kevin shook his head in mock-disbelief, a genuine pleased smile crossing his face. “Sensational. And I would never tell you that you don’t do your job. Ever.”

Kathy reached out for a glass that was half-full of red wine and took a small sip. “Good thing,” she remarked and placed the glass down. “So, what did you want to tell me?”

I’ve got cancer.

“Kevin?”

I might be dying.

“Kevin, what’s wrong?”

I might never see you again...

“Kevin, you okay?”

You might be on your own...

“Kevin, honey, what is the matter?”

Kevin shook himself out of his trance, smiling lightly, praying to God that he wouldn’t start crying. “Nothing,” he purred, taking hold of her arms and wrapping them around his waist, repeating the action with his own. He pulled her body tight against his and pressed his forehead against hers, staring deep into her eyes with a look that he knew would make her forget everything she was doing.

“So I was thinking...”

“Uh-huh,” Kathy replied, her eyes widening slightly, realizing just how close to him she was and how much she craved his contact.

Any form of contact from him and it never ceased to amaze her just how much she never got tired of it. Even the little things from him she loved. Since the first day she’d met him, she had been instantly attracted to him and as she got to know him she had found herself thinking more and more about him and suddenly, before she realized it, she was in love. With absolutely everything about him.

“And what were you thinking?”

“Well you know how we decided...” Kevin trailed off, leaning down and kissing the hollow spot on her neck. “That we would wait a few years...” He slowly and carefully unbuttoned the first three buttons on her pale blue shirt, his eyes fully intent on hers watching his fingers. “And I think we’ve waited long enough, so...”

Kathy nodded with understanding. “Oh, I see,” she said softly, giggling at her shirt falling free. “You’re really quite persistent about these things, aren’t you?”

Instead of replying, Kevin took her hand and led her out of the kitchen, ignoring her protests about what was left in there and took her up the stairs, leading her down the hallway and opening the door to their bedroom.

When he stared into her eyes, he saw something in them that made him want to cry. Through her blue-green eyes, he saw love shining through. He saw undying love. He saw adoration. He saw truth and honesty. He saw happiness. He saw life. He saw the love of his life. He saw his best friend.

And with the prospect of him maybe never seeing her again or holding her again, or touching her again, like this, or kissing her again or doing anything with her again was almost enough to reduce him to tears. But he couldn’t cry. Not yet. He could bear to tell her what might soon happen. He just couldn’t tell her. He didn’t want to see her cry. He didn’t want her to cry. He didn’t want to break her heart.

But most of all, he didn’t want to leave her and he didn’t want to die.

“Kathy,” Kevin said softly, taking in her bare body with his eyes and caressing her cheek with the tips of his fingers, “you know I love you...”

“I do,” Kathy replied happily, smiling up at him and wrapping her arms around his neck. “And you know I love you.”

Kevin smiled back. “Do you think we’d make good parents, my lady Katherine?” he quipped in a delicate voice, kissing her softly and holding her warmly against him. He shuddered from the feeling of her body against his, the softness of her body and how her hands rested comfortably on his shoulders, massaging him there from time to time. “You feel so perfect, I never want to let you go.”

“You don’t ever have to,” Kathy whispered. “Ever.”

Kevin looked into her eyes with utmost seriousness. “What if I had to? What if I couldn’t be here, with you and do this with you?”

Kathy kissed him in response, weaving her fingers through his dark hair. “Trust me, babe, I’ll always be here.”

But will I?

~***~