I so agree EMDEE. I guess if she was paying all her bills by direct debit, nobody would notice and I can understand how officials would allow her to slip through the system. Heck, I even see how if she had no family and her friends all dead that she would go unnoticed. But as you say, how can her neighbours in a tenement building not notice she wasn't around. I do think that this itself is a shocking example of how fractured a society we have become.
See, I have this (probably now romanticised) notion of living in a tenement. I spent the first 15 years of my life in one and we really were a community. You looked out for your neighbours, you did their turn of the stairs if they were ill, you shared what you had if folk were short and you knocked on a door if you didn't see your elderly neighbours for a day or two (often, you didn't need to knock as doors were left opened).
I know I'm stretching things here but I can't help thinking that in this age of mindless celebrity, millions of people will mourn someone they never knew while poor old lady lies dead and unnoticed for five years. There was a shopkeeper on the news this morning who said he remembered her passing his shop every day just as others in the building talked about her going to the park, lifting litter in the street, etc. They have to share some guilt, surely? I kind of 'look after' a woman down the end of my street. She is only in her sixties but she lives alone, suffers from depression and is a bit of a loner. I don't do a lot, just 'lend' her my dog at times when she needs it, drop her off a few cans each week, drop in for a chat, etc. I know now exactly what level of support she needs as she wants to live her life quietly but she has also done lovely things for me too and so it's a 2-way relationship. I'm not alone here, people do all sorts of things for each other every day so I just cannot understand why these neighbours were so wrapped up in their lives they didn't notice. Not even the smell, it seems!
Sorry, I went on too much there. This story just saddens me so much on many levels including how we treat our old people.
Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 5:01 pm
What'd I miss here, GG?
