There is nothing more disturbing than learning that somebody has died, and nobody noticed. The stories are out there, such as the woman who lived alone and frequently traveled, but apparently died of natural causes in her car in the garage and nobody found her for six years. Her bills were automatically paid from her bank account, and kind neighbors kept her lawn mown. When her account ran dry and notices went unanswered, the bank foreclosed on the house and sent somebody to repair a leaky roof before announcing its sale, which was when the discovery was made of her mummified remains.
In Croatia, a woman named Hedviga Golik died alone in her home. The difference? She wasn’t found for 42 years.
A nurse in her 40s from Zagreb, who lived in a quiet apartment, Hedviga made a cup of tea one day in 1966, sat down in her chair and passed away. Her bills were paid by the building architect, who had set up a perpetual fund which continued after he had died. Lights stayed on in the apartment, but nobody questioned it and some people assumed she may have moved out.
The building underwent renovation in 2008, and that was when the work crew made an authorized break-in to the unit and found a gruesome living space frozen in time. Everything was preserved from that fateful day in 1966, including Hedviga, whose body had dried in the climate-controlled space.
I discovered that occasionally missing persons are found in submerged vehicles years after they disappeared. Logic dictates that we should patrol nearby waterways or cliffs to see if somebody met with disaster, and not to wait until a bizarre event leads to something that should have been discovered in the beginning. For example, a person using Google Maps saw a satellite image of a vehicle under water in a lake, leading to closure for a family missing a loved one. We now have drones which can do it instantly.
It’s one thing to live in a population in which everybody minds their own business, but another when we ignore what should be our business. Lives are lost in isolation and misery because we don’t pay attention to a child being mistreated, a woman being domestically terrorized, or even a dog or cat being left out in the cold to starve or suffer under nature’s elements. Times like this should compel us to leave MYOB to where it belongs–in other situations–and step up to make people know that they are not confined to the shadows.
I have walked the empty halls of senior housing apartments with nobody to be seen, residents or visitors. My feed brings up stories of dive crews showing a license plate taken off a vehicle under water to waiting family on the shore. Articles about people whose lives ended after years of horror at the hands of another make me cry. When stories of such poor souls come to my social media feed, I feel for these people. The missing and ignored matter, as we all do.
Nobody should have an obituary reading that they died alone and not one person cared. Even the most despicable, notorious prisoners serving life sentences receive public notice of their death. We cry when we read that a child has been lost to violence. We can rebalance these incidents with more attention to what is around us, and put an end to those mysterious apartments where the lights never go out for 42 years.
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