Many years ago, probably over a decade, my mother read a news story

[conuly]

about some man who had left his dead mother in the living room for five years. At least five years, it may have been more.

Mommy was actually really sympathetic to this man. It doesn't seem he was doing anything fraudulent like collecting her pension, so it made sense that when he came home and found his mother dead he might've been really overwhelmed and decided to put it off until the morning. And in the morning it was the same, so he figured he'd call somebody later that day, and then at some point the acceptable window for delays closed and now he had the twin problems first of having to call people to deal with his mother's body but also explaining to them why he hadn't called right away.

And so she just sat there in the living room for several years.

Although she very much understood how this happened, you can expect that my mother didn't want this to happen to her, and many times she insisted we make the specific promise that, no matter what, we don't just put off handling her death because it's just overwhelming.

And we haven't, btw, and the other day I was talking to Jenn about this and that and she mentioned that next time around, hopefully a long time in the future, when one of us dies it should go a bit smoothly because the other one has already done all this once. To which I say that if it's her, and she has any advance warning at all, she'll probably have already set up a few scheduled deliveries of gift baskets for the rest of us. She likes to be prepared.

Now that I think of it, I'm actually kind of brilliant. You cannot tell me that's not my best idea ever.

Comments

[bibliofile]

It's a pretty damn good idea!

[andrewducker]

It's a great idea! Although one should not feel pressured to provide gifts after one's own death.

[conuly]

No, of course not, though some people, like my sister, do that sort of planning to cope with things they otherwise don't want to deal with.

[siliconshaman]

I'm reminded of a story about a guy who used to buy flowers for his wife on their wedding anniversary. He died of cancer I think it was, but the anniversary after that the wife received a bunch of flowers from him. Naturally she rung the florists and asked 'what the hell?'

The guy had prepaid and set up delivery for the next twenty years...

It's point that a lot of people seem to miss. The world goes on after your death, just without you in it.

[spiffikins]

I've heard stories like this and I think it's a lovely gesture and something positive that you can do if you have a terminal illness and can plan for things like that!

[glinda]

That sounds like a lovely thing to do for your loved ones if you have enough warning to do so. (Thought hopefully a long time in the future for both of you!)

[spiffikins]

I can totally see how something like that could happen - especially the whole "welp now we're outside a reasonable window of time, so it's just going to be EXTRA awkward and I can't deal with THAT".

[conuly]

Oh, yeah, definitely.

Around that same time there was another news story about some man who lived in a trailer with his girlfriend, and apparently she was going through some things and had stayed in his bathroom for three months, at which point he finally called somebody to help.

Which makes even more sense! Obviously the first few hours you can't call anybody, because they'll just say "Dude, tell your girlfriend to get out of the bathroom" and laugh at you, and then there's a narrow window where it's okay to get somebody in to help her get the help she apparently needs, and then once that window closes - slam! - anybody you call will be like "Why the hell didn't you call sooner!?"

[spiffikins]

Dear lord. I can almost see it with a dead person - they're dead, beyond help. It doesn't matter much to them if you wait.

But a *live* person who went into a room and didn't come out? That's awful - if they went in and didn't come out - if I hadn't heard anything in a few hours, I would be really concerned - ESPECIALLY if they were "going through some things" and I wasn't hearing signs of life!

[conuly]

She wasn't locked in, I think - it was a trailer, so I'm assuming they only had the one bathroom? - she just wouldn't leave.

[spiffikins]

Wait - she wasn't dead? ahahaha! I assumed that she had died while in the bathroom and he hadn't wanted to deal with it for 3 months.

So, she just...lived in the bathroom for 3 months? Did she call doordash and have them pass food through a window? How did he shower or go to the toilet for 3 months? OMG.

[conuly]

I assume he did it with her in there. As somebody who grew up with one toilet *that* part is the least weird part about this whole story!

[vvalkyri]

Oh cripes yes

[maju]

some man who had left his dead mother in the living room for five years. But what about the smell? I know it would wear off eventually, but not for at least several days.

[conuly]

I guess he just closed the door?

This is not the only time I've heard of somebody having a dead family member in the house for many years. Most recently, I read about this woman who was a. a hoarder and b. estranged from her son, and after she died (or moved into a nursing home, idk) they cleared out the upstairs of her house, which she hadn't been able to get to for ages due to both mobility issues and the aforementioned hoarding, and they found her son's body on a bed where apparently he'd died in his sleep.

There's lots of articles about people living with their parents' bodies, though most of them do involve pension and social security fraud.

[maju]

Wow, gruesome.

[conuly]

It's the hoarding part that worried my mother. She actually got LOTS better about it over the past several years, to the point where she basically wasn't one at all, but for a while there after my father's death she really was and the house was in awful crowded shape too. So that's why she worried.

[wpadmirer]

OMG, that's funny.

I know people who would do that.

I'm too disorganized to manage it.

[readerjane]

I could see myself struggling with this, for a few hours, then finally gritting my teeth and calling 911 because having to deal with “Why didn’t you do anything” was just that much harder than having to make the call.

With my mom the social butterfly, though, the more likely scenario would be that some neighbor or close friend finds her first because even though I hadn’t talked to her in a couple days, there were multiple other people who’d expected to see her before it got long enough for me to worry.

It just occurred to me that knowing Mom has fancy hearing aids which can (and do) send me an alert if she falls, might be counterproductive, in that I could assume she’s fine when I haven’t received a text.

[vvalkyri]

I've never heard of fall detecting hearing aids!

[readerjane]

Yeah, they’re really schmancy hearing aids with motion sensors in them. We’ve had a few false alerts when mom sets them down too abruptly. Sort of a “This Is a test of the emergency warning service” experience.

[vvalkyri]

Careful - that's how John Wick started.

Gift baskets aside, it is a great gift to do as much as possible ahead of time to make things smooth for the survivors.

J was his father's executor, and found that his father had already put everything in his mother's name and had chosen where he wanted a wake and who to invite.

Contrast with my friend A, whose mother refused to even change the beneficiaries on accounts that were still pointed to her late husband nor deal with making a will, and so probably most of the year later it's somehow still tied up in probate and he's using his own money for all of the house expenses, having to cash in 401ks and such.

That would be slightly less galling if the mother hadn't chosen when to stop treatment and still wasn't willing to handle these things before she did.

[adafrog]

Wow. I can see it, though.

[cellio]

Pre-arranged gift baskets for one's anticipated mourners... wow. That's brilliant, if you know enough about timing to be able to do it.