It seems there are requirements.
Victor died.
The next day a man came to install his blinds.
This is what happens when you die suddenly. You leave appointments behind.
People are expecting you.
The dentist is expecting you.
The bank is expecting you.
A man is standing outside your door with blinds and nobody has had the courtesy to tell him you’re dead.
The man saw the boarded-up door and knew something had gone wrong.
You don’t need much experience in the blind business to know that a boarded-up door is rarely encouraging.
He asked what happened.
And this is where Hyacinth Highhorse enters the story.
According to the repairman, Hyacinth told him Victor killed himself.
That should have done it.
The man had asked what happened and now he knew.
There was no need for an appendix.
But Hyacinth apparently believed there was.
According to the repairman, she added that Victor wasn’t liked by anyone in the building.
The man had come to install blinds.
Now he knew Victor was dead and unpopular.
You never know what information you’ll need on a job.
📌 THE POPULARITY REQUIREMENT
I hadn’t realized you were supposed to be popular in a condominium.
I thought you were supposed to pay your fees.
Apparently there are additional requirements.
Nobody mentions them when you buy the place.
You get several hundred pages explaining parking spaces, common elements, pets, balconies and what you’re allowed to attach to a door.
Nothing about popularity.
This should be corrected.
There should be a clause.
Resident shall remain reasonably well-liked at all times, including immediately following death.
Then everyone would know where they stood.
Or lay.
THE ELEVATOR STANDARD
Perhaps Hyacinth meant people didn’t say hello to Victor.
This is possible.
People take elevator greetings seriously.
You get in.
Someone says, Morning.
You say, Morning.
That’s friendship.
If the elevator stops on four you have more time together and the relationship deepens.
Cold out.
Very.
Now you’re practically family.
By the time you reach the lobby you know everything necessary about each other.
You know it’s cold.
You know it’s Monday.
You know the other person wants the elevator doors to open.
And then you go your separate ways.
Apparently these are the people whose opinions determine whether your life was successful.
❤️ THE TROUBLE WITH VICTOR
The trouble with Hyacinth’s reported assessment was that Victor was loved.
We loved him.
This is inconvenient because love ruins a perfectly good popularity survey.
Popularity can be counted.
Love can’t.
You can count how many people wave to you in the lobby.
You can count Christmas cards.
You can count how many people attend the condominium barbecue and tell you your potato salad is lovely.
Love is more troublesome.
Love turns up when things are awful.
❤️ WE WEREN’T RELATED
Victor and I weren’t family.
Not technically.
There was no blood between us.
When Victor died, we took care of his funeral.
Families normally do this.
It’s one of the duties of being family.
You are born into a family and eventually somebody has to arrange the funeral.
It’s a poor system but nobody has invented a better one.
We didn’t have to arrange Victor’s funeral.
There was no obligation.
Nobody could say, He’s your uncle. You have to.
He wasn’t my uncle.
Nobody could say, He’s your brother.
He wasn’t.
Nobody could say, He’s your father.
No.
We did it because we loved him.
There is a difference.
Duty says, Someone has to do this.
Love says, I’ll do it.
So we did.
We made the calls.
We made the arrangements.
We chose the things you never imagine you’ll have to choose for someone.
We showed up.
And nobody gave us points for it.
Apparently the points had already been distributed in the elevator.
A QUESTION FOR HYACINTH
This makes me wonder about Hyacinth.
Not whether people like her.
I’m sure many do.
Perhaps they say hello enthusiastically.
Perhaps they even ask how she is and wait for the answer.
But I wonder something else.
Hyacinth, if you died tomorrow, would one of your friends arrange your funeral simply because they loved you?
Not a relative.
Relatives don’t count for this exercise.
Relatives are trapped by centuries of custom.
I’m asking about a friend.
Someone with absolutely no obligation.
Someone who could walk away but wouldn’t.
Someone who would sit in a funeral home choosing things through tears because leaving it to someone else would feel like abandoning you.
Would somebody do that?
I hope so.
Everyone should have someone who would.
It’s a much better system than counting elevator greetings.
⚠️ THE MAN RETURNS
Later we were inside Victor’s unit cleaning.
There isn’t much to say about that.
It was awful.
Grief is strange because the world insists on continuing with ordinary things.
There are dishes.
There is mail.
There are things in the refrigerator.
There are blinds that were supposed to be installed.
Then someone knocked.
It was the repairman.
He told us about the conversation with Hyacinth.
To be clear, I didn’t hear Hyacinth say it.
I heard his account of what she said.
I stood there listening to him.
Victor was dead.
We were cleaning his home.
We were preparing his funeral.
And apparently I had just learned he wasn’t popular.
I thought this was unfortunate.
If only we’d known sooner.
Perhaps we could have cancelled the funeral.
☠️ THE WORK ORDER
I imagine the paperwork.
CUSTOMER: Victor
JOB: Install blinds
STATUS: Incomplete
REASON:
☐ Nobody answered
☐ Wrong measurements
☐ Parts unavailable
☐ Customer deceased
☑ Customer failed popularity requirement
COMMENTS: Hyacinth confirms.
That should satisfy Accounting.
THE PROBLEM WITH THE DEAD
Dead people have a disadvantage.
They can’t answer.
You can say almost anything about them and they remain terribly uncooperative.
Victor couldn’t say:
That’s nonsense.
He couldn’t say:
Who asked you?
He couldn’t even say:
What does this have to do with my blinds?
Which would have been my preferred response.
So I’ll answer for myself.
Victor could be difficult.
He could be stubborn.
He could be funny.
He could be generous.
He could make me furious.
Sometimes he managed this before breakfast.
He was not perfect.
This was fortunate because I don’t think I could have tolerated him if he were.
But I loved him.
🗑️ THE FINAL ACCOUNTING
So perhaps Hyacinth was right about one thing.
Maybe Victor wasn’t universally popular.
Very few people are.
Even Hyacinth may discover this someday.
But there is popularity and there is love, and they’re not the same currency.
Forty people can say hello to you in an elevator and not notice when you’re gone.
One person can love you and arrange your funeral.
I know which one I’d rather have.
So Victor may have failed the Hyacinth Highhorse Condominium Popularity Examination.
No certificate.
No gold star.
No favourable notation in the minutes.
But when he died, people who weren’t related to him stepped forward and took care of him.
Not because custom required it.
Not because family duty demanded it.
Not because anyone was watching.
Because we loved him.
That’s the final accounting.
And if Hyacinth still prefers the other system, that’s perfectly all right.
She can keep the elevator.
Disclaimer: This post is satire and opinion. Read full disclaimer.
