I’m her neighbor, and I watched the whole thing unfold from my apartment window across the hall. What her children didn’t know, what nobody knew except me, was why she did it.

Her name is Dorothy Mitchell. Dorothy has lived in apartment 4B for forty-three years. Her husband died in 2003. Her three children live in different states and visit maybe twice a year.

She has advanced Parkinson’s disease, osteoporosis, and the kind of loneliness that makes your bones ache.

Dorothy would try to talk to them, try to make friends, but they’d just do their job and leave. Feed her. Bathe her. Give her medications. Then disappear.

She started leaving her door open during the day. Just a crack. Enough that she could hear someone in the hallway. Enough that she wasn’t completely alone. I’d wave when I passed.

Sometimes I’d stop and chat. She told me about her late husband George, a Korean War vet. About her kids who were “too busy.” About how she used to travel the world and now couldn’t make it to the mailbox alone.