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.