A very sad story

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Yesterday, in my city, a dead man was found in his small flat. He was 59 and was dead 9 months ago. He worked all his life, but was two years short from a retirement allowance. He was married and separated, had two children and, apparently no friends. His mail box was full of unpaid bills (gas, electricity). No money for heating or eating he used to have his meals at some nuns and some warmth in some gallery (note that to avoid bums having some heat in the tube's air vents spikes are placed by the municipality). He had cancer and two bags of food have been found on a chair. He does not seem to have wanted to die. To the last person who saw him he expressed his bitterness, but, he added, in French c'est la vie. Nobody knocked at his door except collectors who put the bills in his mail box.

Ah, what a sad story. I hope he found happiness in his life, at some time. Poor man.

Things like these happen all the time in every big city. For this man better to have died alone that attached to tubes in a hospital or surrounded by relatives who only wish his expedite death and do what they do out of guilt, not out of love. There is a very beautiful movie of Mike Nichols, Wit, which tackles this problem: the character, interpreted by Emma Thompson, has the only luck to meet in the hospital a compassionate and responsible nurse who helps her to the last, fighting decisively against bureaucratic routines of heartless "cures" (they are called codes).

How very sad.

But it happens more often than we like to think. A chum who was a bobbie told me about getting a call to an apartment where an elderly lady had died, and nobody knew it until they noticed the stench.

It's difficult sometimes to be friendly with my neighbors. The bloke next door is quite the recluse. I chat with him when I see him walking his dog. But he always cuts it short, and proceeds on his way. Sad to think if he had a sudden heart attack, I'd prolly never know....