Every now and then I think I should probably get married and/or have some children. This usually happens when I hear news about a decaying body being found in an apartment. The body is not found by a loved one, but usually by the Super or the police because neighbors complained about a foul smell coming from the apartment. It wouldn’t happen like that if that poor soul didn’t live alone. That’s when I realize that poor soul could be me.
I actually did the math once and determined that it would probably take about four days after my untimely death (any death of mine would be “untimely”) for my rotting corpse to be found. Sometimes I hear on the news or read in the newspaper about people who knew “immediately” that something was wrong because “she didn’t show up to work” or “she didn’t answer the door” or “she didn’t return my call”. None of these would apply to me. If I didn’t show up to work, didn’t answer the door or didn’t return a phone call, people would just think I was being a flake.
It would probably take two days of my absence for my friends and family to raise an eyebrow, so that by day three they’d start asking around. It would take another day for them to connect and realize that no one had heard from me and to make a bigger inquiry by involving my Super or the police…but by then I would already have started to smell.
I’m hoping that dear Danny, the world’s cutest dog, might have barked at my motionless body before it lay there for four days, which would hopefully spur the neighbors to come and see what’s wrong. (This is kinda gross, isn't it?)
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11 comments:
*shudder* It's not a fun thought! But getting married only helps one of you (whoever goes first) while probably traumatising the surviving partner. And having kids would only speed up the discovery process if you actually spoke to them more often than ever 4 days after they moved out.... so I'm not sure there's much you can do about this!
I completey agree with Rachel. I think it's a bit of a myth people tell themselves -- that being married and having kids stops you from being alone when you die, but spouses die and kids move half way across the country. If anything, I wish people would be spurred by these fears to get to know their neighbors and have more of a sense of community and looking out for each other.
This seems to me to be a rather silly concern. The speed with which you are found after death doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how much people care about you, or similar factors like that. How quickly someone finds you is just a marker of how often you physically have people around you, nothing else. Since it's not the mark of anything important, why care?
Maybe as we get older we have to adopt L Lyn's idea and have 1 or 2 other elderly friends who all agree to ring each other every 3 days. . . or raise the alert if no one has rung? Or just say, "to hell with it" and move it with a bunch of friends like in "The Golden Girls". . ..hm, no think I'd rather just die and smell up the place for four days or so.
Good blog and posts. That scene in Bridget Jones Diary occasionally runs through my mind. L Lyn & Rem Anon--great points!!! T
In Australia there are volunteer programs that call up the elderly each day to check on them ..... these probably exist in the US too I'd think.
Otherwise I'm sure the local churches do things like this...
Of course Rachel and L Lyn are correct. Just a kooky, tongue-in-cheek thought. A husband and kids are a guarantee of nothing. I had to remind a friend who lamented that she has no kids that nursing homes everywhere are filled with people who are not being visited by their kids. And if I die and stink up the place? Not my problem! :-0
I did not get what Rem Anon did from the issue. I read Eleanore's concern, which is also mine, not as a measure of how much someone cares but the sadness of dying alone and the disgusting things that happen to a body left alone in that state. Auntdanny
Yeah, pretty much that will be me also. But, my sisters will be at my house after one day because my family has a tendancy to worry a lot..I am part of that worry-clan also. Still, this does not suede me enough to the married and kids side at all.
I agree with Rachel. I'm hoping 1 of my 2 children will be in touch with me daily like I'm in touch with my Mom daily.
I'd know if you were dead.
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