Died Alone - Nobody Mourned

The directions were simple.

“Write the saddest story you can using only four words.”

Immediately, I knew what I wanted to write. Further, I knew what I needed to write because there are far too many people who die alone.

On a far too regular basis, we see or hear of news articles about people who have passed from this life with nobody to mourn their passing. Life passed those individuals by so quickly that it leaves us to wonder what exactly happened.

Are there valid reasons why there are none to mourn the passing of another human life? Did they outlive the rest of their families? Were they not blessed with children to celebrate the passing years? Did a broken home keep them from enjoying their golden years with others they loved? Were they just selfish and hated having others around?

No matter what the reasons, life came and went. Many have crossed the line that separates us from eternity with nobody to be with them.

I worked in the funeral industry for over eight years. During my time as a funeral director, I NEVER heard one family say, “They died way too late in life.”

What I did hear, almost with every funeral was, “They died TOO soon.” It did not matter whether it was a newborn infant or the lady who had lived just over 105 years. Sadly, there were times that I conducted a short service though where the only other people present were the cemetery workers waiting for the committal to take place.

For the time that I worked as a CNA, I also remember times that I held the hand of a dying person and wondered why no family or friends were present to say their goodbyes.

In our home through the years, when asked, “where did the time go?”, the standard, comical answer was always, “In the past.”

However, the more years that pass by in a blur, the less comical the statement seems to be. I have a very vivid recollection of events that occurred back when I was three and four years old. Some of the events could easily have happened last week, but they did not.

More than fifty years — half a century — has come and gone for me.

The things that used to be important as a child no longer mattered when I became a teenager. The areas of life that I valued as a teenager faded into oblivion when I entered my adult years. Now, as an adult, I can look back over the course of almost forty years and I realize that my focus was often misplaced. I thought I knew what I needed for life to work, but sometimes, those needs let me down.

Nobody knows how long they have, but what time I have left, I desire to make those minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years count. I want to use my time doing what is important because the night is coming when my day will be spent. I will cross the great divide that separates the living from the dead.

When that day comes, I do not want a news article commiserating on how sad it is that another person goes to the grave with nobody to mourn them. I want to be surrounded by those I love. My family and friends that I cared for and invested time with means a great deal to me. It is my hope that they will remember me when as the wise King Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, “I go to my long home.”

For those who have been blessed with others surrounding you, go a little further. Go beyond your own existence and search for individuals that may be alone or think that they are alone.

Because –

Nobody should go without the memory that somebody cared.