Human Parts

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Did Hoarding Take My Friend’s Life?

I watched his vigor slowly fade, and there was nothing I could do

Karen Lunde
Human Parts
Published in
10 min readSep 13, 2024

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Author’s image. Imagined with Midjourney AI.

To protect the privacy of those involved, the names in this story have been changed.

“G’night,” Ben says. “Heading back to the house.”

The house.

“Have you ever noticed that you don’t call your place ‘home’?” I ask.

He tips a solemn nod in my direction. “Because it isn’t.”

Ben’s wife is a hoarder. Over the couple of years that we’d been close friends, I’d slowly come to learn more about his daily reality through little comments, always delivered with a weary expression.

The house. The storage locker. The clutter collection.

Ben never called the place he returned to every night “home.” But as we spent more time together, I realized he did everything he could to avoid being there. It seemed whenever I went downtown, I bumped into Ben. Ben having lunch alone in a restaurant, with servers who knew him by name and knew exactly what he was going to order. Ben doing tai chi in the park on World Tai Chi Day. Ben attending parades, musical events, festivals. Always alone, but surrounded by people who knew him, at least superficially, and were happy to see his smiling face. But I saw the sadness behind his eyes.

A few months into our friendship, Ben asked me what had drawn me to him, why I made a point to strike up conversations and ask him to share a meal with me. He had a knack for asking surprising questions. Ben loved people.

“My humans!” he would say.

I pondered for a moment.

“Well, it’s obvious you’ve got tons of friends and everyone loves you. Everywhere you go, people know you.”

“That’s true,” he said. There was no pride or arrogance in his voice, he simply accepted my words as fact. People knew him. Everyone loved him.

“But for someone surrounded by people, you seem like the loneliest person I’ve ever met.”

Ben looked down.

“You see a lot,” he said.

“I guess I just hoped we could help each other be less alone.”

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Human Parts
Human Parts
Karen Lunde
Karen Lunde

Written by Karen Lunde

Career writer, musician, friend to dogs, messy gardener. Kinda smart about a whole lot of stupid things.

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