A Blog: The Immortality of Mary Sue Merchant

Mary Sue Merchant died of natural causes in a tightly locked house on 25 acres in this small community, with only a dog for company. Now her small town is reflecting on why no one noticed for 18 months.

Nobody knew the reclusive widow was gone – not even when the house was sold for back taxes while her decomposing body lay inside. Sometime later, the lonely dog died of thirst in the same room. “We’ve lost the community,” said the Rev. Neil Flowers, who plans to talk about Merchant on Sunday at Beulah United Methodist Church, a few miles from where Merchant died. “We do our own thing. We lead busy lives. We go and go and go … and stay within our comfort zone.”

It’s a story that lingers, and unfortunately it isn’t unique. There are others like Yvette Vickers and Vincenzo Ricardo. People pass away without notice every day. It’s the extreme cases like Mary Sue Merchant’s that make for news stories. I think it was John Lennon who said life is what happens when we’re busy making other plans, and it’s true. Some people think of it as, we don’t learn to appreciate something until it’s gone. Mary Sue Merchant may have been a recluse, living an unobtrusive life. It wasn’t anything she did that caught our attention, it’s what we didn’t do. Hers was a legacy not of her making. Her story, an unexpected immortality.

This is my attempt into an unexpected immortality. I write for my own enjoyment, improvement, satisfaction and learning. I’ll leave here my own thoughts, the things I believe, right or wrong. Maybe these won’t be as interesting a read or as articulately made as others. No doubt I’ll anger some. Maybe it’ll make a difference. Likely, all this blog will go unnoticed until I’m gone, when it’s committed to a lasting memory.