said in Someone gave a damn:
@jon-nyc
Well, don't forget, just because he goes to that restaurant daily, it doesn't mean he doesn't eat anything else!
Reminds me of something I read about Japan. Elderly people there who live alone, sometimes make arrangements with their neighbors to signal to each other whether they are alive (or just need to be checked on).
They signal others whether they need assistance by whether or not they leave their shades up or down. I forget which meant what, but the arrangement is that they check on each other by the position of their shades.
Apparently, there are a sad number of such solitary elders whose bodies are found post mortem (often by the smell). Needless to say, they don't want that to be their undignified fate so they have made that working arrangement.
There are a great number of people living alone (often in advanced years and perhaps especially in Japan where families are small - frequently childless, and longevity also common). Thus such strategies are an ingenious precaution for self-protection.
For that matter, I read in the NYTimes that it's all too frequent that deceased people are found in the same fashion by the police - sometimes with no clear contact information. (It's a nightmare situation all too easy to imagine with the passage of time. )
It seems to me an elderly celebrity with dementia and Parkinsonism, looked after by his younger wife, was fairly recently found days after he died when his wife herself predeceased him. She had succumbed to some rare disease carried by rodents - her dog having died too. Without her care, her husband himself passed away. (Anyone remember their names?)
One of my neighbors down the street, whose children were supposed to look after her (but didn't), fell, breaking her hip. She wasn't found for days, unable to get up or contact emergency services. It was a terrible experience.
I only heard of it from her when I visited her during a blizzard checking on her and offering to buy her food or other necessities. (I nearly froze to death wading through deep snow to her house, leaving small children at home alone while I trudged to her house!). Not sure how I had even become aware of her situation. I found her bed-bound, bad leg elevated, fridge full of rotten food.
Her story ended happily - as far as such things go - A third daughter living far away took her mother to live with her until her death.
The negligent children, however, had treated her with shocking cruelty for as long as they lived in the same town. I only learned of it during my chance visit.
It was a completely unworkable arrangement the family had worked out for her - to deposit their elderly mother in a house alone in a place where she knew no one (relying on those selfish and uncaring children who treated her abominably. Sad story for as long as it lasted.)
