Relative found dead after a few days.... I think we are bad people

[MariaAngustias]

We have a distant relative who was a recluse, could never interact socially with others and probably these days would be classified as aspergers or similar but was just thought of as a bit odd and a loner. Perfectly nice person just did not wish to interact and was very uncomfortable and unable to make eye contact. To cut a long story short she was found dead in her house after quite a long time and we only just found out after 3 months of her lying in the morgue. We are of course feeling like the shittest family every and wondering what we could /should have done. As far as we were aware, she had a good job, retired and had a nice home and car and just kept herself to herself. Apart from a Christmas card both ways and a letter we did not have contact. God, are we the worst people on the planet. If we had known she was ill we would of course helped. She died of natural causes. We are paying for a funeral and sorting out everything but I just feel so bad, so sad for her that she ended up like that and the only reason she was found was that the postman realised there was a mountain of mail... It is a huge shock and it is making me think we should have made more of an effort. I have other relatives i have lost touch with - this is so hard. She lived fairly local. It is too late to help her now and we have to live with this.

@Polyethyl

A veteran member of a group I'm in died a recluse's death. The papers heaped criticism on us. But we had sent letters, no reply. We had phoned, not picked up. We had knocked on the door, didn't open the door.

If someone chooses to be a recluse then forcing yourself on them is rude, bordering on illegal.
We organised a good funeral, but the criticism in the press was dreadful.

OP didn't say she had tried that often though so its a different situation. She just exchanged Christmas cards once a year which is pretty poor in my opinion.

To the OP - I don't know how to vote, it's not clear which option to pick for which opinion? I think you should have made more effort. If she really didn't want to socialise then she would have ignored your calls and letters but it sounds like you didn't even try.

I have a neuro diverse son (undergoing diagnosis for ASD). The thing I find really interesting is that as a society we still think people should be social even though this is not inclusive of people who do not want to be social. My son likes to have people around but not interact. This is seen as a problem by many people including health professionals. It would be amazing if we recognised being reclusive as a opposed to being lonely (which we do need to do something about).

You've had a shock and it's normal to go into lots of 'what ifs' in the circumstances. But you've really nothing to feel bad about. She was a capable adult, who made her own choices and lived her own life. Part of that is that she died her own death.

In the nicest possible way, how did you think she would die?

Peacefully at home is a pretty good way to go, for anyone. For someone who dislikes close human contact, being fussed around in hospital by staff and well-meaning relatives, would have been pretty dreadful.

Being given some warning, via a hospital admission, might have given you the chance to fuss around, bring her stuff and feel useful. But frankly, that's all about you and your feelings, about circumstances giving you the opportunity to feel good about yourself; nothing to do with her and her feelings. What do you actually care about here? How things were for her? Or what other people think of you?

Is there some concern that her death was not peaceful and could have been prevented or made more comfortable if medical attention had been sought? She was clearly a competent, independent person, perfectly capable of making a doctor's appointment or calling an ambulance. Is it possible that she didn't realise how ill she was and that someone else would have prompted her to seek medical help? That would be the thing to think about with other relatives.

But honestly, you can provide panic buttons or emergency phone numbers but people are probably no more likely to use those than to call an ambulance direct. Unless you start calling people weekly for a chat, or dropping in on them, or making sure someone else is doing this, you will never notice the sort of early stages of illness, or rapid decline, that would prompt action.

So the question is, do your other relatives want that sort of close, checking up and chatting regularly relationship? With you? Or with someone else? Or are they actually happier living their independent lives and taking the risk of becoming incapacitated alone? That's a choice for them to make but you can certainly start that conversation.

Btw, practical point but the normal thing is that the deceased's estate pays for the funeral. Why are you paying? Who is her executor?

@BornIn78

The saddest thing to read was that she was in the morgue for 3 months. Nobody missed this lady for over 3 months. Yes, I would also feel pretty upset and guilty in this situation.

This is cruel and unnecessary. You really didn't need to have posted this when an OP is obviously feeling dreadful and has come to this site seeking help and support. Sometimes the better part of valour is discretion.

OP: guilt is a very natural emotion but it's futile. It won't help her and will be very destructive to you. You haven't fallen out, there have been no histrionics; she simply seems to have belonged to that privileged group of self-sufficient people to whom no one else's company is preferable to their own. And that's fine. Those are admirable qualities. She was independent, no one's burden, and hers is the end I would choose: a peaceful death in her own bed.

Don't get sentimental over rites: those are for the living. And don't, for one minute, worry about what the neighbours or wider society think of your family. People will always be standing in the wings waiting to cast judgement on others (cf. any breast vs. bottle thread). Your family lived the way it wanted to live: it worked. It's nothing to do with anyone else.

Your relative lived and died on her terms. What better way is there than this? What happens to our mortal shell afterwards is not a matter of importance.

Some people just are loners and really do not want other people poking their noses in, however kindly meant it may be.

I don’t see that you have anything at all to reproach yourself with. She lived her life the way she wanted.

I've been in your position Op, but it was my beloved father and it was me that found him after a weeks "headspace". He died of a massive heart attack and he was gone within seconds, that brings me some peace and I hope it was similar for your relative.
My dad suffered from dreadful mental health issues and he asked me many years before his death to allow him X amount of days space when he was feeling particularly bad, this was our agreement for a long time and it worked for us. It seems similar to your relative, it wouldnt have been right for you to have constantly invaded their privacy so you have NO culpability here at all.
I wont sugar coat this because it wont be helpful in the long run; the details of an unknown death being discovered are horribly painful for the family left behind and I have had to seek support in order to cope with all the feelings around the trauma, it may be a good idea for you to do the same. I sincerely hope you are not left to clean the home of your relative the way that I was as it will be very upsetting, I was pregnant when I was cleaning my late dads home and subsequently I miscarried, my GP thinks it was the stress.

I'm trying to inform and not frighten you I hope there is help available for you.

I think that those posters saying how sad it is are projecting their own feelings onto the situation.

Loneliness is very sad. Unwanted social isolation is very sad. As a society, we need to do more to combat this. As individuals, we need to look out for relatives and neighbours (not just the elderly) who are at risk of this.

But living alone and having little social contact is not sad if that is what the individual genuinely wants. Just because it would be an awful situation for you, it doesn't mean that it would be an awful situation for everybody.

To the posters who have criticised the Op; shame on you. You have NO IDEA what it is like to go through this situation.

You sound like a nice caring lady and family because if you weren't you wouldn't be giving it a second thought.

Stop being so mean to yourself

@RaspberryCoulis

Sorry for your loss, *@MariaAngustias*. Please don;t beat yourself up over this. From your post it was clear that your relative was a recluse and chose not to have contact. You cannot force a relationship with someone who isn't interested, how ever much effort you put in. You respected her wishes and kept the relationship on her terms - Christmas cards only.

Exactly this. It may have been controlling and would have been against her wishes to push for further contact but I do understand how you feel. You couldn't have done any more. RIP

A veteran member of a group I'm in died a recluse's death.
The papers heaped criticism on us.

What a disgusting liberty. No one has the right to do this to others. They should be thoroughly ashamed, but won't be, since that requires some introspection rather than pointing an accusatory finger at others who have done them no harm. I'm not sure what elevated plane of arrogance a person would have to occupy to consider themselves the guardian of society's morals. And this particularly applies to the gutter press (and whoever it was feeding them).

And sorry to be so blunt but why would a dead person care how long their body lay unfound or in a morgue? That is a concern for the living only.

It seems to me that the only relevant question is whether help could have been obtained and the person made more comfortable (on her own terms), if she'd been in more regular contact with people. Possibly, depending on what she died from. But quite possibly not, if she died suddenly.

I've lost a relative in a similar though not so prolonged way and when someone lives alone and dies suddenly at home, that is what happens. Weekly phone calls and regular little chats with neighbours can't prevent that from happening.

I know the posts saying that she died the way she wanted are meant well but really, I doubt anyone wants to be left in a room undiscovered for a long period and then transferred to a morgue for further months. It is a desperately sad situation.

Apologies for the brutality and finality of this statement, but openly stating these words doesn't make the finality of death any less brutal.
The woman is dead. She is beyond any form of sentimentality over what's happened to her physical body, as we all will be when our time comes. She can't want. She can't feel. And she can't know.

If she was uncomfortable with more contact that just a Christmas card was enough then I don't know why you feel guilty if she wanted more and she died like this yes, I can understand you you feel guilty. It may seem sad to people who don't want to be in that situation but if she liked to live as a recluse being dead in a morgue for 3 months isn't really sad its a consequences of how you wished to live. Also she is dead she won't know she is in a morgue for that length of time. She may of been happy to live the way she did, died happy and now not known any different. If she was unhappy about lack of contact when she was alive then yes that's very sad.

I personally can't imagine being happy when cut off from people and love feeling connected.
However that doesn't mean there aren't groups of people that are genuinely content with their own company.
I've got an severely autistic elderly relative that would probably prefer to live an isolated life but can't due to medical reasons.

YABU, it's not your fault so please don't blame yourself or feel guilty. She lived her life how she chose to, quite probably how she wanted to judging by your comments about her having retired from her job and having a nice house and car.

Some people don't like mixing with others, myself included. I sometimes wonder what would happen if I died at home, how long it would take for me to be discovered. Probably not that long in my case, because my bank account would soon be empty and people would be chasing the bills! I read an account in the news recently about a man who wasn't discovered for seven years, his bills were being paid automatically so nobody went looking for him. It's the way it goes.

Dying alone doesn't mean she suffered. If she went to bed content with her life one evening, and passed away in her sleep - that's about as good an exit as one can hope for.

Anyone who blames you is an idiot. (For a start, where were they when this happened? Why didn't they look in on her? Even anonymous posters on this thread who criticise you, I'd wager there be at least one person living within ten miles of them who lives alone through choice that they don't even know exists, let alone keeps in touch with them.)

I will likely die in a similar manner (no close family and no real interest in having children) and I do get that it can look sort of sad to an outsider but it's a result of the way I'd prefer to live my life.
Dying alone is a direct consequence (and not really one that bothers me).
Dealing with family and children isn't worth a slightly higher chance of someone being around when I die. At that point anything that makes me "me" will be entirely divorced from my body.

OP, I don't think you could have been trying to get in touch weekly for years just in case she was about to pop her clogs. Hopefully she died in her sleep or quickly, and after that everything else is irrelevant to her.

OP I haven't RTFT but, your relative lived the life she chose. Don't beat yourself up

At least she is now free. Try to think of it that way.

From what? Sounds like she was perfectly happy with her life.

"It sounds like she wasn't unwell as she died of natural causes."

Eh? An illness is a natural cause isn't it?

Even if you had been in contact weekly she might not have been found for up to a week. It’s just a fact of life if you live alone. Even a very social person might not be missed a few days.

As for her being in the morgue so long, I feel the authorities could’ve done more. They could’ve investigated, it wouldn’t have been too hard to find OP (and would’ve freed up the spot in the morgue). But I guess that’s the sad state of funding for police and other services.

Don’t beat yourself up OP. I totally understand why you feel that way but she made choices. I live alone, I know this could happen and I hope it doesn’t for the sake of those who find me. But I wouldn’t want to die with people sobbing around me either. It’s never going to be easy.

" I doubt anyone wants to be left in a room undiscovered for a long period and then transferred to a morgue for further months. It is a desperately sad situation"

I don't know if that would bother me. I either would be nothing or my soul would be somewhere else, wouldn't it?
What would bother me would be being ill and in the process of dying and not being able to get help and there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that here.

Yes agreed. The only relevance of the prolonged unfound and morgue time is that it makes the family feel/look bad (though really only if they and the deceased actually wanted a relationship different from the one they had).

This very sad, hope you're ok OP.

There are apps that can be quite good for people living alone, vulnerable or otherwise - EyeOn is one I think- the person checks in with the app every so often but if they stop checking in the app alerts up to 3 set contacts that this has stopped so they can call or go round.

Maybe good for people who like their own space but then might not be noticed in an emergency situation. Also if they have pets it could be very important that they were found quickly if the death of their owner did happen to occur.