If you died who would care?

If someone you knew no longer was in your life.  How long would it take you to see about them?

The tragic story of a woman who was found after 6 years mummified in the back seat of her car is heartbreaking on so many levels that one cannot help but ask where was her family and friends? (You can read about it here.)

What is so powerful to me about this incident is that basically her money was more missed than her presence.  It took money running our of her bank account before another human being stumbled upon her body.

I suppose I could take a holier than thou attitude and judge her family and friends and say shoulda, coulda, didn’t.  But as I get older in my own life, I find that I am simply less inclined to look at others failures when I have enough of my own, and must simply take this as an object lesson to apply to my own life.

I love Peter Jackson’s, Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  One of the characters that moves me emotionally is Samwise Gamgee.  In the movie, he tells his friend Frodo who looks like he has died to not go where he can’t follow.  It is a powerful piece of cinema, well acted, and you are able to see how close these characters are to each other.

They are so close, that despite earlier squabbles that put a rift in their relationship, Sam goes despite the danger ahead of him to actually look for his friend.  He braves creatures, and risks harm to himself to simply see about his friend.

And that to me this is the thing that is sad about this story.  Where was this woman’s Samwise Gamgee?   It is easy to take from this and reflectively ask do we have such a person in our own life.  Someone if we had gone missing would call to see about us.  Would track us down at risk of personal harm, and fight through terrors unknown to see to about our welfare.  It begs the question how long do thing have to get before we are noticed?  I would hope that I have loved ones that would see about me if they no longer heard from me.

We live in the age were we text, email, are photographed, instgrammed, facebooked, twitterized to death but despite all the means that avail us to connect this person got lost.  No one for 6 years heard from her.  6 years, let that sink in.

To me the biggest lesson I think this raises, is who are WE a Samwise Gamgee to?

Who can look to me, who can look to you to move heaven and earth and not be satisfied until we see for ourselves that the one we call friend is ok? 

That is the real question.  Not should we condemn this family, coworkers or friends on what they did not do or failed to accomplish.  But simply to look in the mirror and ask who am I close enough to, or who do I need to grow closer to, that I am their Samwise Gamgee?

After all we are so busy, it’s easy to forget the real human relationships of others.  Are we the priest or the Levite in the story of the good Samaritan?  Who is our neighbor?  Are we are brothers keeper?

Who are you Samwise Gamgeee too?

P.S. I love hearing from my readers.  Post a comment on this blog or better link it and let me know and I’ll enter you to win this months giveaway of  my novel, The Third Heaven: The Rise of Fallen Stars!

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Tearing down the veil