When I heard that Gene Hackman and his wife were found dead in their home, I thought, as most of you did, that there was foul play. It took more than a week to find out what had really happened to claim the lives of Mr. Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arwakawa, and the truth was even more tragically sad than if they had been murdered.

My caregiver support group met the day before the news broke about how the couple had actually died. We conjectured that maybe Hackman’s wife had been struck ill and couldn’t care for herself or her elderly husband who suffered from Alzheimer’s. I looked around at my group of friends, most of whom are the primary caregivers of a spouse living with dementia, and I asked some hard questions: “What if something happened to you? Would your loved one be able to call for help? Does a friend or family member check on you regularly?”

Well, it turns out that we were right about how Gene Hackman and his wife died. Our experience of taking care of someone with dementia made us “experts” on the case.  Family caregivers know firsthand what it means to become so focused on the health and well-being of a loved one, that they don’t make time for their own health or needs. You probably won’t believe this, but 30% of family caregivers die BEFORE their care partners.

Why didn’t the Hackmans have friends or family to check up on them? The news stories tell us that the Hackmans “kept isolated” or “preferred privacy.”  That may make them sound strange or reclusive. Well, Alzheimer’s is a very sad disease. One of the first signs of dementia is social anxiety and the resulting isolation. The person suffering from dementia is aware that they are becoming forgetful, so they pull away from social situations because it’s uncomfortable for them. They don’t want to be embarrassed by forgetting someone’s name or being asked a question they can no longer answer. When they start pulling away, their spouse or care partner might become isolated by default. When you keep refusing invitations, after a while, the invitations stop coming.

The Hackman case is extremely sad, but unfortunately, it’s not unheard of. I didn’t want my friends in my caregiver support group to have to dwell on the sad reality of possibly dying alone, but before we ended our meeting that day, everyone promised to find someone to whom they could be accountable.

If you live alone, or if you live with someone who has dementia, make sure you check in with a friend or family member every day. Just send a thumbs up or a short message. There are 4 people who contact me every day, basically to let me know that they are alive. They send me a short text message, (or their results from Wordle) and I respond accordingly. If you know someone who is in this situation, ask them to be accountable to you. If Gene Hackman’s wife had just checked in with a friend every day, perhaps letting them know she was sick, she might have received the help she needed, and her husband and pets would not have been left alone, unable to provide for themselves.

Consider the investment of those few moments each day for the wellbeing of yourself and your loved ones.