Slain

The cruelest people I knew were always their own greatest victims.

I volunteered at a hospital about a year back, was stuck with a lung cancer victim, middle aged, late forties. He was an asshole, took advantage of everything from making a mess on the floor, pissing on the bed, telling me dirty jokes, and giving me racial slurs.

Getting mad would only give him a sense of satisfaction so I sustained, or leaving him for another guy, so I didn't give up.
A month later, he got worse, his breathing severe, and the dehumanization of cancer had taken its root, face pale, bald, and skeletal undergrowth.

One night before I left to go home, I heard him sobbing, sounded like a 9 year old choking on himself. So I walked back, and checked in, and he held in his hand a ring.

I simply asked, what was it for?
Told me how he met his wife senior year of college.
How he loved another woman, but got caught up with another soon after she broke off with him in a hasty breakup, and how he regretted it when he saw her again, all alone sitting on a bench where they first met.

But he married the other woman, had just 1 daughter, and he became the workaholic businessman. He hated coming back home, to the sight of a messy house, a fast food dinner, a baby in 2 pounds of shit every day, and in all his efforts, he tried to convince his wife to change up.

But she didn't listen, went around shopping trips and eventually he dissociated from all house life completely, his office became his domain. Smoking his new sex and for 4 years he kept up with this repetitive lifestyle, never knowing his family.

But one day, he gave in, cheated with a co-worker, people found out, wife takes nearly all his assets and the kid, and he was fired for temper/sexual harassment.

He took up telemarketing, went around 1 night stands, chain-smoked, swindled every guy any guy that near him, and projected his cheating insecurity onto every woman he ever could have an intimate relationship with. He had 2 other very short marriages, and became fairly obese.

However he tells me his one biggest regret, was not to a human being. He saw a pigeon limping one afternoon on the side of the street, as he got closer and closer to it, scared it, had it headed towards the center, and in a second, it gets hit by an SUV, feathers fly, and he just stared at it for a good few minutes.

And that made him cry, I couldn't tell you why, but it was the most damning memory he had.

I couldn't cry with him, I couldn't understand, and in all honestly, I didn't feel a strong personal connection to him, I would say, equivalent to watching some HIV-riddled African kids starving on some remote desert on TV for some bullshit Christian charity commercial. That kind of feeling.

3 months later, no one came to the funeral, he gets buried in a cheap wooden coffin, and I tear up the eulogy I had made for the friends/family that was supposed to be there, the ones he probably lied about, I'll never know.

So,TL;DR what I'm saying, and although it implies, "hey give the bitch a chance" I really do mean it, in all likelihood she didn't like herself very much, worked in an environment she obviously didn't like, and despite her horrible actions, there is something human that is at least, recognizable, tragic. You don't have to care, but putting yourself in that position to hate a person holistically and be glad for their demise, is just a tad ignorant.