Death, where is thy sting?

Here’s a thought that surely most people who live alone – especially those who are no longer young and invincible – must grapple with: what happens if I die while I’m at home? Have a stroke, heart attack, serious fall? If such a thing happens when you’re out and about people will see, call the police, an ambulance, somebody will go through your pocketbook, your wallet, find out where you live, and on and on. But if you’re home alone when this happens, how long will it be before someone finds out? And in the meantime...

Having spent a lot of my reading time over the past decade or so devouring mysteries, I’ve long been familiar with the scenario wherein a body is discovered only several days into the decomposi-tion process, when the smell attracts the notice of neighbors. I don’t have a problem with the idea of dying, but the idea of police or fire fighters having to break down my door, only to be greeted by an unholy stench and a body so bloated with gases it’s unrecognizable is a definite turn-off. Perhaps that springs from the same vanity that kept me coloring my hair for over twenty years. I want to look good. At the very least, I don’t want to look bad. Not even when I’m dead, and the people seeing me are professionals who are used to seeing people who are not at their best.

So what do I do about this situation? As I’ve already mentioned, I have no near and dear living close by, no one who is accustomed to seeing me or at least talking to me on the phone every few days. I do try to talk to my mother in San Antonio about once a week, but if she doesn’t hear from me, she isn’t going to immediately assume that I’ve dropped dead. And even if she starts to worry, she’s 1900 miles away. There is no one who, not hearing from me, or being able to reach me by phone, would come running to see what the problem was.

I am the director of a small public library, and certainly if I didn’t turn up at work, or call in for, say, two days running, there would be alarm. My staff would know this “wasn’t like me.” But what if I’m watching an Inspector Linley mystery (which is how I’ve been entertaining myself the past few evenings, having checked DVDs of the first two seasons out from our library) on a Friday evening, and suddenly keel over, after experiencing the usual left arm/shoulder/ neck pain, sudden nausea, and shortness of breath. There I would lie, in my body’s spontaneously released waste, until, I suspect, along about Tuesday morning. The woman I work with on Monday mornings would be concerned that I wasn’t there, would call, would get no answer, would shoulder on until it was time for the changing of the guard at 1:30, when she might call again, before leaving. My Monday afternoon staff person would also be able to manage fine without me (we have a policy that no one should work alone for an extended period, but both of these women are capable of managing alone). Barb, my morning person, might call again in the evening, express concern to her husband – “I hope nothing’s happened.” If she tried again Tuesday morning, and still got no answer, I suspect she would call the police, and sometime during the course of the day I would be “discovered.” But hey, that’s three full days, four nights. Plenty of time for the gases to build up...

No doubt this discussion is striking some readers as a tad morbid. But this really is the sort of the thing that one realizes one must think about, like making a will and buying a burial plot, as senior citizen-hood attacks with full force. When you’re young you’re never going to die – and isn’t it wonderful how the human mind has developed that defense mechanism, to keep from dwelling on the one absolute reality that awaits all living things – but when you reach a certain age, and everything is starting to break down periodically, like a car that really needs to be replaced, then you know you’re going to die, and suspect you’d better make some arrangements.

So I’ve looked Death in the face, and am not afraid of it. But I want to be tidied up and tucked away as soon as possible, like a human being still swathed in what may be our greatest illusion – that of dignity.