Mashup - it doesn't take a village, it takes a family

I have previously written about Vincenzo Riccardi (also see tags) and Eric Taylor (also see tags). As a reminder:

• Vincenzo Riccardi was the Long Island man who died in his home with the television still on, and no one knew about it for more than a year.


• Eric Taylor was the Indiana boy who died of cancer, and all of the people in his town and surrounding states knew about his illness after publicity from Larry Sparks, Diamond Hill Station, The Praising Hims & The Mossburg Strings, and others.

So what is the difference between the two cases? I don't think it's the neighbors. In my view, the New York neighbors of Vincenzo Riccardi were just as caring as the neighbors in Indiana. Helen and Pat Boyle were under the assumption that Riccardi was in a nursing home, and had no reason to think otherwise. Diane Devon was under the same impression. April Cowden thought he was in the hospital. And don't forget that Cowden would regularly visit Riccardi in his home, reading him his mail, helping him pay his bills, and buying his groceries.

As this article indicates, Cowden lost touch with Riccardi after Riccardi began demanding too much of her time. After that, apparently no one was checking on him.

And here's the important difference between the Riccardi case and the Taylor case. In Eric's case, Julie Henricks was around to care for her son, to alert people in the community, and to help alert people from far away. In Vincenzo's case, his wife had died years ago, and there does not appear to be any family that were around.

While neighbors can be caring, they're not necessarily going to go above and beyond the call of duty. I'll grant that families can sometimes be uncaring, but often they will sacrifice for their children or spouses or parents, even at their own expense.

Of course, there are other views. See Mark 3:20-21, John 19:26-27, and Matthew 19:29.

vincenzoriccardi erictaylor

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