A much tinier number die alone in unwatched struggles. No one collects their bodies. No one mourns the conclusion of a life. They are just a name added to the death tables. In the year 2014, George Bell, age 72, was among those names.
That has changed since the NY Times' N.R. Kleinfield wrote a piece on the life and death of a random New Yorker: The Lonely Death of George Bell.