[epicide]

> It was almost as if Hiroaki had never existed.

Bullshit. When I die, if all that is remembered of me are the things in my apartment, then it doesn't really matter if I was alone at the time or who cleans it up.

I'm willing to bet he made a lasting impression on somebody. Friends, coworkers, etc. If not, then having kids or someone living with him wouldn't have mattered.

I definitely get the feeling the message of this article is "make sure you have kids so you don't die alone and forgotten", which is stupid for several reasons.

[pavel_lishin]

> I'm willing to bet he made a lasting impression on somebody. Friends, coworkers, etc.

Apparently not enough of an impression to carry on the friendship, though, right?

I think the point of the article is that Japanese society has traditionally been very dependent on family and work for all of your social bonding, with much less emphasis on maintaining relationships outside of those two spheres.

If he did have kids, they would likely check up on him more than once a month. It's not guaranteed, of course, but Japanese culture does seem to put more of a weight on that than American culture.

The point of this article isn't "this is how it should be or suffer the consequences", it's "this is how it is, and this is one of the consequences".

[jxramos]

I was struck by this part "They retire from lifetime jobs and lose the only communities they’ve ever really had." I've long recognized that deep friendships are those that transcend the circumstances which brought two individuals into proximity to take a liking to each other in the first place. A friendship that is limited to the circumstances that unite people I call "circumstantial friendships".

[mc32]

It's possible relatives live in the countryside and this person outlived geographically close friends and coworkers.