Is it Odd to Mourn the Death of a Stranger?

It feels completely natural to me.

Trigger warning: This is a tragic story with a few graphic details that may be too much for some. I’m sharing it for no other reason than to pay my respects to a man that no one seemed to notice.

If he’s sitting in heaven looking down right now he’d be pissed that no one was aware of his absence. In my opinion, it also means that no one noticed his presence.

Image by truthseeker08 from Pixabay

It was a recent Monday afternoon when I received a text from a dog-walking friend in my condo building. She lives on the second floor, I’m on the top floor.

Her message read, “Does it smell like sewer in your condo or hallway?”

I told her it didn’t smell up here on the fourth floor to which she responded that it was pretty rank on her floor.

Four days later on Friday, I was out walking my dog. As I approached my building I saw another second-floor neighbor enjoying a glass of wine on her balcony so I stopped to chat.

During our conversation she had also mentioned the sewer smell, adding that it’s the reason she’d been sitting on her balcony so much lately. I told her we had no smell on the top floor.

Then I made a remark that I truly regret now. Not for saying it but for saying it in such a passive, almost joking manner.

I said, “Jeez, that’s been going on all week on your floor. What if somebody died in their apartment? Can you imagine?”

Now, fast forward to the following Monday, a full week after I’d initially heard about the smell.

I ran into the dog-walking friend from the second floor again and she said, “Remember when I was asking you about that stench on my floor?” Of course I remembered…it’s all anyone from the second floor talked about.

Instinctively, I somehow knew exactly what she was about to say. My heart sank rapidly. Indeed, the man who lived across the hall from both women died in his apartment. He had just been discovered.

He lived alone behind that door and clearly, he lived alone in his life because nobody realized he was missing from society.

Things a person should never have to Google.

I just did a search and learned that it takes up to 72 hours for that kind of smell to set in. If you followed the timeline I just laid out, it means he was in there for up to a week and a half, unnoticed.

What I’ve heard from a friend on the condo board is that his workplace eventually called the police to do a wellness check. But still…a whole week?

My job would know I’m missing after ONE DAY! My mother would know I’m missing after one day.

How painfully lonely this man’s life must have been for no one to have noticed his absense for so long.

Over the past two days, my heart and soul have been aching for that man. I’m hardcore grieving the loss of someone I didn’t even know because who else is grieving for him?

What’s worse is that my mind is spiraling over his loneliness and cause of death.

No one on the board knows how he died but some of them know that he has no family. And some of them know he was temporarily renting the apartment due to an ugly divorce.

You can draw your own conclusions as to where my mind has gone.

Kindness matters tremendously.

The other night during my routine “step outside and talk to the stars” ritual I had a soul-to-soul chat with my son about the man.

I asked Curtis to find him and tell him everything is okay now. I also asked him to please escort the man to his new and comfortable place among the stars and help him settle in.

During our chat, I witnessed four different floating stars roaming across the sky, all moving in the same direction. I know they’re only satellites, not stars, but I like to imagine they’re new arrivals finding their way home.

Since my son crossed over I consider him a guardian of the galaxies, the welcome wagon to a peaceful place for lost souls. I imagine loneliness doesn’t exist there. Only joy and contentment.

After my late-night date with floating stars, I wrote a message on a piece of notepaper. It read, “May you rest in peace and power.”

I went downstairs to the parking garage and placed it under the wiper blade of the departed man’s vehicle. The truck had about a week’s worth of dust on it. Then I went to bed.

This morning his vehicle was gone. I left the note just in the nick of time.

Whoever came to pick up the truck now knows that someone on earth cares about a man she didn’t know.

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My apologies if this post is sad and depressing but I think it highlights a very important message.

Sometimes we don’t check in on each other often enough. Sometimes people don’t check in on us often enough. It’s a harsh reality of busy day-to-day life or even plain avoidance. I know I’m guilty of it.

This is one of those situations that solidifies the value of kindness towards our fellow humans.

Say hi to a stranger on your walk, smile at someone on the bus, or compliment someone on their outfit.

Just be kind because you never know if you can make a positive impact on an otherwise lonely existence.

This incident reminded me of something I wrote a while back. It’s about the very same kindness and compassion I’m referring to:

Never Write “Wash Me” on a Dusty Vehicle