THE LAST WORD 10-19-15

THE LAST WORD

Every year some 50,000 people die in New York. A great majority of those people have relatives and friends who gather to assemble a funeral, write a death notice, and collect sympathy cards. But a smaller number die alone and unseen, without the typical mourning that marks the end of a life. This weekend, the New York Times told the story of one George Bell, a man who lived alone and died alone — and in doing so, told a story of the city’s complicated machinery of mortality. Sometimes, in discovering a death, you find a life’s story and a bit of meaning; this story is one of those times, and it's a must-read.