JAM: What happens when everyone you love, and who loves you, dies first.

Natalie Wood lived around the corner from me.

Her house is nestled in amongst a street of terrace houses in the Sydney suburb of Surry Hills. It’s not far from central station; one of the busiest thoroughfares in our country’s biggest and brightest city.

In July 2011 Natalie’s 86-year-old body was discovered in her home by the police. But Natalie had actually passed away almost eight years previously…. And nobody had noticed.

Natalie’s body had been left to decay for so long that the cause of her death will never be conclusively know. By the time she was found, her only physical remains were a small pile of bones and a set of bright pink dentures.

I don’t say that to scare or shock or even gross you out. Although I know it might do all of those things. I say that because – for me – it represents how little a life can come to mean, once all the people you loved and who loved you, are gone.

How is it possible for a person to cease to exist and for nobody to miss her for eight years? Not her family, not her friends, not her neighbours, not even the city council expecting bills to be paid.

Natalie came to the end of her life at a time when there was nobody left living who was close to her.

And I find that so incredibly, incredibly sad.

I suppose that’s because I wonder who would find me if I died, how long it might take, how people would react, what would be done, how long they might be sad for. Stories like these prompt that momentary indulgent consideration of the inevitable deaths of those you love and of course, of yourself.

And surely, the only solace from those thoughts is the idea of love. That to be loved and needed and noticed by others in your life is what makes the idea of it all ending, bearable. And for Natalie that was not the case.

This story graced the home page of every online news site today, as the inquest into Natalie’s death is about to commence. Five of Natalie’s cousins and her sister-in-law are all attempting to stake their claim over her $900,000 estate and the near $80,000 sitting in a dormant Commonwealth Bank savings account.

It’s hard not to read those details without anger or frustration that the people who are so interested in Natalie’s money now, were not remotely interested in her while she lived. However, those family members maintain that Natalie didn’t seek out that human contact. That she was a reclusive personality. That she didn’t wish to speak to or interact with people any more.

So whose responsibility was it? To check on Natalie. To chat with her occasionally. To make sure she was doing okay….

One of Natalie’s neighbours spoke to Fairfax and said ”It’s terribly sad [Natalie Wood] was there so long… I was not surprised, though. People lead such busy lives.”

And it’s true. We do all lead incredibly busy lives.

I wave hello to my neighbours on my way to work in the morning but I don’t know their names or what they do for a living. I catch up with old friends as regularly as we can but the simple business of living seems to get in our way far more often than it should. I make a mental note at the start of every month to make sure I get back home to visit my parents; sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t.

But it shouldn’t have to be that way. When my grandmother was unwell last year I saw her more regularly and spent more time with her than I had at any other time in my life.

Suddenly, when faced with the certainty of losing her that ‘time’ I never used to have, magically appeared. And now, with my grandmother passing in October, I’ve somehow lost that time once more. Once again, I am just too busy.

I know I’m not the only one. We’re all busy and important and stressed and desperate for that one night in on the couch watching Breaking Bad, eating Cheetos and just being ALONE.

But when faced with the prospect that one day our own alone-ness could engulf us entirely? Somehow a little more time devoted to those around us, doesn’t seem so difficult after all.

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