To say the least, Kendra's life did not turn out the way she had hoped. She was scarcely able to muster the capacity to reflect on herself and her situation and did her best not to think about it too much. Over the last few years, she had almost withered away, appearing as a shadow of her former self. Her face was sunken, and the dark circles under her eyes had become permanent. In rare moments of lucidity, Kendra brought to mind her mother and father who she hadn't seen for years. One part of her whispered to them how sorry she was, and another part of her raged at them for setting her life on the course they had. On one level, she knew that they both did the best they could with what they had, but on another level, she could never forgive them.
Thankfully such moments were rare for Kendra as they were quickly overtaken by more of the drug, more of the buzz. She got to the point where she continued to need more of it to dull the pain.
It must have been this desire that pushed her over the edge. She injected once and then again --- and then there was a blinding light followed by nothing but darkness.
Police found her body outside on a very cold December night. There was no one there for her, no one to claim her as their own.
1) What are the provisions made for deaths for which there is no next of kin or family? Who provides burial services, and who pays for these services?
2) How many people die each day in the U.S. who have no living relatives?
1. There are very few provisions made for a funeral in which the deceased individual has no living relatives. Those who typically attend these funerals are the appointed priest holding the service and the funeral employees who are paid to be there. These funerals may also have a few friends attend. The individual is typically placed in a simple coffin and minimal services are provided for a ceremony. If no one is able or willing to arrange and pay for the funeral, the local council (or the health authority) may do so (Directgov, 2012).
ReplyDelete2. The CIA’s (2011) recorded death rate for the United States last updated in July of 2011, states that 8.39 deaths occur per 1,000 people. In comparison to the rest of the world, the United States is ranked number 87 for having the highest death rate. The top three leading causes of death in 2010 were as follows: Disease of the heart, malignant neoplasms, and chronic lower respiratory diseases (Murphy, Xu, & Kochanek, 2012). I could not find the exact number of people that die each day in the United States who have no living relatives, but I did find statistics that backed up this information for the United Kingdom. Elizabeth Day (2008), a journalist for The Observer, states that there are a growing number of people who die with no friends or family to notice. “Around 200 funerals a month are unattended, a figure set to rise as it is estimated that, by 2010, 16 million people in the United Kingdom will live on their own” (Day, 2008, para. 3). It is estimated by Kenneth W. Wachter, Chair of the Department of Demography, at the University of California at Berkeley, that "the number of Americans between the ages of 70 and 85, without a living spouse, without any biological or stepchildren, and without living siblings or half-siblings, will total more than 2 million people by the year 2030.” (Harrell, 2008).
ReplyDeleteReferences:
ReplyDeleteCentral Intelligence Agency. (2011). The world factbook. Retrieved July 1, 2012, from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
Day, E. (2008). Nobody cared when they were alive or mourned when they died alone. Retrieved July 1, 2012, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/aug/17/communities.socialexclusion
Directgov. (2012). Paying for a funeral. Retrieved July 1, 2012, from http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Death/WhatToDoAfterADeath/DG_066724
Harrell, L. (2008). The elderly: Living and dying alone. Retrieved July 1, 2012, from http://voices.yahoo.com/the-elderly-living-dying-alone-791917.html?cat=12
Murphy, S., Xu, J., & Kochanek, K. (2012). Deaths: Preliminary data for 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2012, from National Vital Statistics Reports Web Site: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_04.pdf