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By JEFFERSON WEAVER
Staff writer
I’d like to ask all my readers to do something right now.
Pick up the phone or walk across the street and say hello to the person you haven’t seen lately.
This idea came to me recently whilst reading about yet another recluse whose body had been found, forgotten, in his home. In this case it was a mentally disturbed man who died around the time of Hurricane Rita. Before that, it was a little old lady in New York whose bones were found four years after the last time anyone saw her. Before that it was a sad, depressed man whose mummified corpse was found in Moscow.
What do all these things have in common? They were senior citizens or disabled people about whom no one apparently gave a hairy rat.
I have written about similar incidents before; it seems somebody is always too ill-tempered to get along with their neighbors, or folks move in who never get around to meeting the nice old man next door.
In most cases, the relatives have long since moved away and the children are too wrapped up in their own lives to do more than call Momma every once in a while. When Momma doesn’t answer the phone, or return their calls, most (but not all) will become concerned.
Obviously no one was concerned enough about Florence Bock. That was the lady in New York City whose bones were found by a cleaning crew after her house was sold. She’d been reported missing, at least, but it doesn’t seem to me like anybody really looked for Mrs. Bock.
Then there’s Larry Euglion of Beaumont, Texas.
The news accounts of Euglion’s behavior are enough to put anyone off; for some reason he split with his family, and ran away when approached by relatives and neighbors on the street. Sometimes the 52-year-old behaved oddly, doing things like wearing multiple layers of warm clothes in the heat of summer. He refused to be evacuated when Hurricane Rita was headed for his town.
Yet a neighbor of 20 years, while willing to ask others where he might be, never walked across the street to see if a man with an obvious mental problem was still at home, much less still alive. A man planning to buy the property (the town was selling it at a nuisance abatement auction) found Euglion’s fully clothed, skeletal body in bed.
And then there’s Vladimir Ledenev.
Ledenev , 68, was found when a worker at the apartment building went to the home – not to check on Ledenev, but to serve him with papers about unpaid bills. His corpse was found at his kitchen table. While neighbors said they tried to contact him, a news story said it all with the words, “somehow, people seemed to forget about him.”
Now, I know these stories made the headlines because they were bizarre.
You also know I’m not much of a bleeding heart kind of guy.
But people – especially older folks, or those with special needs – shouldn’t have to lie there like King Tut waiting for an archaeologist to find their remains.
We don’t know that any of these folks suffered, and I pray they didn’t, either physically or mentally. I remember all too well the terror on the faces of my mother and grandmother when they felt like they were alone, and the demons of dementia started to howl in their heads. I’ve also shivered and sweated too many times looking for someone’s grandmother or grandfather who wandered away in what was, to them, the perfectly right direction.
It bothers me when folks that truly need our help are ignored.
Yes, some old people can get cranky, and many (especially here in the South) are proud, independent, and truly capable of taking care of themselves. Some can be prickly. By the same token, people with chemical imbalances or mental problems aren’t always pleasant to be around.
But what, pray tell, will a simple gesture like a phone call or a knock on the door hurt? I have been fussed at when I’ve done so, but I’ve also taken home a lot of home-made cookies and home-grown vegetables. I’ve learned about the Depression, from people who lived through it and wanted to share their survival skills. I’ve drunk a glass or two of tea on screened porches in the sunset listening to someone talk about their arthritis and how things were when the mill was still open.
And none of those things ever hurt me.
A couple years back, I wrote a story about how Lydia Lee, the office manager for the Elizabethtown Police Department, took it on herself to resurrect a senior citizens’ calling program. Several times a week, Miss Lydia would call folks on the list to make sure they were okay. The program was brought back after officers had to kick in a door to help a woman who lay with a broken hip for days on her kitchen floor.
I’m sure other departments have the same program, but I haven’t heard of one lately. It’s not a program that costs a lot of time or money. Miss Lydia is one of my heroes, simply because that one little gesture – calling someone to see how they are, making sure they’re okay – is often forgotten today, and could actually save someone’s life.
Sure, the old man two houses down might snarl at your kids. The great-grandmother across the way won’t let you go when you start talking to her.
I’d be willing to bet that even the most curmudgeonly old coot truly appreciates it when someone says “I just wanted to see how you were doing.” Even if he hangs up the phone in your ear, you know he’s breathing.
I’m pretty sure Vladimir, Larry, and Miss Florence would have appreciated such a gesture. Shoot, they might even have offered the caller a glass of tea – had anyone cared enough to call.
Weaver is a staff writer at The News Reporter. He may be reached via e-mail at jeffweaver@newsreporter.biz, or via telephone at 642-4104, ext 227.
– Weaver is a writer who lives in the Kelly community.
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