<strong><em>"Summer smilin' on the city, another lovely day in Sydney ..."</em></strong>

During the five years that I worked as a newspaper columnist, I wrote more than 700 columns. The one I wrote for publication on Sept. 17, 1998, wasn't the best column I ever did and it wasn't the worst, but it is one that stuck with me.

An elderly woman living alone in Chino Hills, Calif., had died in her apartment in the middle of March. She apparently died sitting on the sofa and watching television in her living room.Her body wasn't found until late May, more than two months later.

By then, her body had, well, sort of melted into the carpeting.

She didn't have any friends and she had never had children. The only reason she was found in late May was that her ex-husband -- who was living in Colorado -- had sent her two alimony checks that had not been cashed. He called the local police and asked that they send someone to check on her.

It cost her estate more than $6,000 to clean the room, to get the smell of death out. The carpet couldn't be saved.

[caption id="attachment_1288" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Mick"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Mick2.jpg"><img class="size-thumbnail wp-image-1288" title="Mick2" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Mick2-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" /></a>[/caption]

I was 48 years old when I wrote that column, a lot younger than I am now. But I remember it very well, and there were few stories that touched me on a more visceral level. Maybe it's because I remembered a prediction my best friend Mick had made way back in the early '80s. He suggested that I might end up old and alone, living in a Skid Row hotel after losing a leg to diabetes.

<em>This guy was your friend?</em>

You have to understand the relationship. At any rate, I could picture myself in that situation, even though I have never had diabetes.

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