The Story of the Old and Lonely Man....

I work for a small diner as a waiter - a job I took after quitting a "real" job working for a Vancouver-based corporation. I love that my current job allows and encourages me to be involved with the people who are both my customers and my neighbors.

Our diner is close to a residential facility which caters to aged American military vets. Some, like Carl here, are so old they served in WWII. Small businesses (or large corporations with concerned and humane employees) give an hour's home and a friendly ear to people who might likely need it.

We - all of us - get to know our customers. Our place is small, and that allows us to know who is missing. When someone goes M.I.A. we know it and we wonder and sometimes send someone to find out about them. 

Your friend died alone, and not to belittle that, but we all die alone. It is the quality of the hours spent between womb and tomb that make a life good or bad. We don't have to spend hours in volunteer work to make another's life better. We simply have to be there and available.

Hum, I hear of similar event a couple of times coming from Europe, North America and even Tokyo. 

Yet never did I hear such a story coming from Algeria, Niger, Hungary or Vietnam... People may be poor there but they do care still for one another. Consumerism may be nice as a goal however what does it leave of the soul.

Lets not get too sentimental about this! It's similar to what I feel about beggars in South East Asia.  There are so many of them, and many are suffering from appalling disabilities, that it is impossible to do much as an individual to help, beyond giving something here and there. I personally have chosen to give to one guty regularly, each time I pass him, and I chose him since his face is badly disfigured from burns.  I figured his burns so repulsed any passer by that he would find it difficult to get much money.  Don't praise my 'compassion';  it was just just smart thinking (praise my intelligence!).  Similarly, you offered him what you could ()rather than ignoring him) but he in fact refused as is his right.  We may feel it sad that such a guy is so isol;ated - but it seems his choice.  OK:  he may have become conditioned to that since change is hard to do when you've got used to it.  But we go around feeling sorry for every isolated Tom, Dick and Harry. So I disagree with Mikassi:  we don't to be there.  Life's too crowded as it is.

Compassionate but realistic Gerry!

Ok, I can respect that, I some times find the need to question when logic gets twisted, if you read your story now I pointed out some factors that put some doubt in to my mind then you will understand completely why I made such an analysis. 

If there where some differences of time factor such as 1 month behind with the rent then I would of not doubted the story.

Where as I would of and have gone out of my way, perhaps it was because I belonged to a caring neighborhood association at the time. However I help people out here some times as many ex-pats do including the french guys. Buts how some of us look at life, unfortunately in the apartment high rise world of big city's the old and lonely do get neglected and the only way out of that is to form tenants associations where people that have the time to spare get involved in knocking on the old and handicapped doors offer help etc, etc, etc.

I can not of course but the responsibility of what happen on your shoulders but I still get vibes that you did not really care until after this guy died. Look I am no angel and I don't mean to preach and I know you have your own life to lead as all these others within this story of yours You show the sadness and are obviously angry as others that have read and recommended your story. That an old guy can be neglected and not received the help he really should have been given in a caring society.

It's a very sad story and such things can be stopped happening if people wake up to the problems and not say well I am not to blame, but it happened. Please form a tenants association in the area you live and promote what you are doing, so such efforts spread and what happen to the old lonely guy does not happen again in your area of the woods.

You have shown that you think we should all be more caring and in fact possible the other readers of the article can promote tenanted societies else where on this small planet of ours. 

Sorry to have tweaked yours or anyone that's commented or read your stories conscience.

Even if this stories fiction it does not matter, its a good article to stir up some common decency and care for the old and the lonely and the handy cap. We should all show some care and some notice of those weakest members of our society.

Well done you got my vote and respect, because I know your going to do something good out of some thing bad and very sad, thank you.....  

Thanks for sharing this sad story with us, Fripouille. Alas, stories of this kind do pop up from time to time, especially in big cities where the elderly often live away from their families - if they have them.

Yes they do, and it's always sad to read that in the local papers...

Mind you, many old people live alone here. Do you remember the major heatwave here in 2003? 15000 (yes, 15000!!) people died in a few weeks due to it, many of them alone at home or alone in hospitals, because they had no-one to help them in the heat. There were so many dead that they had to stock them in freezer trucks meant for food!!!

This caused a national scandal (most of the country's medical staff were on holiday, that which couldn't happen in most other places in Europe because laws exist to ensure minimum staffing in summer), and there was a lot of guilty debate about the plight of lonely old people.....France still hasn't forgotten it.

Very important that, Kuuva.

Your comment comes as a coincidence, because one of the upstairs neighbours who arrived recently, and who I'd only seen a couple of times, came down earlier this evening to ask if I could lend her my hoover.

It was a real pleasure to be able to do so......It's good to know people, to know you can just ring the bell, and that they can too.......

Oh, me too. If I'd been there when it happened, when he disappeared from one day to the next, I would certainly have gone up there to check on him because it would have seemed weird.

Then again, it's hard to blame people. My life has led me too experience quite a few things, but for others that kind of stuff is surely a little difficult to handle. I mean talking to people who eat from the rubbish bin just isn't what some people do.....Social conditioning plays a role here I would imagine..

Great to see so many comments on this story here...it gives me and others (I hope) hope that society can be kind. Your story sounds like a Truffaut movie...I just read about the re-release on DVD of "The Wild Child." Doctors in nineteenth century France did not solve what ailed the "wild child" but it was probably some form of autism. I would like to see Truffaut's movie again, and I recommend others re-visit it. Truffaut was such an artist and a survivor of childhood suffering himself.

that they put the heat-stroke dead in refrigerated trucks is sickly ironic.

where was that cold when they were alive and needed it?

Hi Paschen,

I don't think it's that simple to be honest. It's difficult for me to talk about this in a cultural-politics manner, and I don't think that individual selfishness, poverty, loneliness and the ill-treatment of older people is a uniquely western speciality. Far from it. Moreover, several of the countries you cite have severe human rights and crime problems.

It does not seem to me that life in those countries is any more to be admired than it is here, and I certainly wouldn't like to live in any of them in the conditions that their peoples do..Would you?

I am not going to have a catholic moment about my culture as compared to others, but, that said, there's certainly lots of room for improvement here, for sure...

Thanks for commenting!

Well iffy,

No this is not just a British problem its a problem all over the world and even worst in the third world. I really do not appreciate the British hate as I am British and I do know we have people in my country that are just as you say. But we also have many, many more that care about their fellow man as I do. The problem did not start in Britain thought it can be found there.

So be a decent fellow and do not pigeon hole a whole race of people with your apparent hatred as its just not so.

It happens there Paschen and here in the Philippines and normally to the old that have no children that have to beg on the streets. It's in fact worst. This is always been a world problem its not just a wealth related thing. 

I feel this article has possibly been wrote in guilt.

I really can not understand why no one reported to the social services that this guy was scavenging out of dustbins and apparently could not look after himself? 

I know that France has one of the best welfare systems in the world but it would seem some the public have no idea how to see the warnings that make an alarm bell ring?

Please tell me why you did not go and seek help for this guy, why did you not shout and scream if such help from the social services was not forth coming.

9 months before the owner was worried about the rent? This does not seem to be the France I know, 2 months maybe at the most, doesn't the owner know how to run a business? That's unbelievable?  

As an ex-member of neighborhood watch in UK, I have helped poor lonely old people in my neighborhood and soon found out about social services and even meals on wheels and things to make life more bearable not luxury but bearable for the old members of a community .

Your story is a good heart rendering one but I really find it hard to believe that the owner of the property allowed 9 months before the door was knock down. And the fact that you your self after realizing this guy had big problems had not done more to seek aid and social service help for your neighbor.

Please tell me this is fiction as if its not I will think badly about your own dealings in the issues leading to this old guys death. 

Could you please provide proof, such as the obvious newspaper report, then I will totally believe this story is genuine.  

Thank you Babel-Fish,

You are right about my not "caring" in a sense, but it may be helpful to remember that, at the time, (It's easy with hindsight) because a) I didn't see any signs of him actually being ill to the point that he may die at any time and  b) I did what I could and wanted to. I cannot fix all the misery. I don't "care" any more now either moreover, in the sense that I put this up to illustrate a social phenomena, not to purify my spirit. I just did my best to show him a little compassion and help his material needs.

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink" we say here. Some people don't want to be helped, as anyone who has worked with homeless people, like me, knows, and I was not going to do things against his stated wish to not bother with all that, unless his life appeared to be in danger.

Concerning why he was there for 7 months, for all I know the social security paid his rent automatically. I never asked him, I didn't care, but would have if he'd told me he was about to be thrown out.

Finally, concerning "proof", I don't know how it's done where you live, but if there was (surely was) a local press article on his discovery, it would have included his name and address (including street number as they surely made an appeal for people who knew him), which I will not put up in a link, because they are, of course, nobody's business. AND, because I live in that building too it would have involved me putting up my full address on the internet for all to see. I'm sure you will agree that I can't be expected to do that....

Thanks for your comments, which didn't tweak me, rest assured. I hope you have a good evening....

Paschen, and I hope you don't mind me saying this, but you don't seem to have understood what I wrote. I said that the police do not intervene in cases such as that described in my post. If I'd called they would have asked me to contact the social security or other agencies, but they would not have intervened themselves because he was not in imminent danger and he was no danger to others either...

Your case involves possible criminal activity, even possible ransom or murder. That is the police's job. You mentioned possible kidnapping and her maybe being mentally disorientated as being the reason why you called the police. Of course they came because disorientred people may be a risk to themselves or others.

Of course the police here will direct you to a homeless shelter or food bank, but they will not intervene for you if you are capable of going there yourself. They may choose to call social services if the person refuses (but then again, why would the person ask if he just refuses afterwards? I don't understand where you're going here...) but they are not obliged to do that unless the person is a danger to himself or others....

I hope this clears up any confusion....

What a sad story - people can become so complacent and distracted with their busy lives.  He was very lucky to have known you, I imagine.

Yes, we live such crazy lives, with so much input, that the expression "out of sight, out of mind" has never rung more true! All many people seem to have the time to think about is what's in front of their eyes. Now.

Concerning me, I did try to help him get things together I suppose, but once, after he didn't go see a doctor because he was quite ill, as I had asked him to, he didn't get his usual glass of Pastis for a month (I told him that would happen if he didn't show me a drug prescription within three days)!! lol! He didn't appreciate it and would call me cruel, but I stuck it out :). It was quite funny actually...

He was a good person.

Heartbreaking - I think everyone is scared of this happening to them.

Oh I'm sure you're right Amyjudd! Older people in particular, I suppose...

The idea of dying alone, alone in physical and in social terms, is something that we all try not to imagine.....

So very very sad,I wonder did he have a name! for it seems to me he was just left to die.In this day and age it is abhorant to realise that the elderly are not given their due respects and rights.Awe, it  was so kind of you to try and help the old man Fripuille,Its just a shame the others around him lacked your compassion.It is people like you who set a good example ,to make the world a better place.

Oh, I'm sure others, even in the building, and elsewhere, helped him too, like me, without making a big deal of it....at least I like to think so.

As Terri said, we just get caught up in our own lives and other stuff just slips away...

His name? Jean-Paul.....

Hello Anarkissed,

Absolutely right, and my own life makes me know why I wrote that. No-one needs pity, they need a little help. Now.

It doesn't take much, just a coffee, or a smile and a chat, or a couple of euros, or a little food, to let people like him know that we're there.....

I am so glad you are no longer lonely......horrible feeling. Dangerous, even...I knew that once.

A very touching story in many ways.

i have heard of 2 cases from my friends in Germany. i hope this is not how many of us will end up.  maybe go knock on your neighbors door just to say high. maybe even get to know them, we may end up depending on them one day.

This in particular is a British disease: it started in the UK and has spread to other modern countries. The constipated and cruel social relations; the knowing of the price but not the value of things. The British are cruel people; born killers and maligners.

Hello Sara Star,

It's always sad to read stories like that in the press. It happens quite often. When I heard he'd died, I felt sad for him, of course, but I felt even sadder for us all, and our way of living......

Thanks.......

Very sad, but sadly very true way of life for some people.

Thank you for commenting Iffy.