Even in death a person's corpse can be put to good use. The application and potential of the rotting flesh is only measured in terms others can understand, coverage in the media. The more grisly the entrance into the world of eternal sleep, the more airplay and thicker the textual blanket. Gold to this mine of grievance and sorrow is when the parent survives the offspring.
Linda Loggins is a woman who has had to endure the pain of surviving the death of her son Damian. To make matters more unbearable Centrelink and the Commonwealth Bank have sent letters to her son despite being told of his death and subsequent void existence. Even while both organizations were reinformed of the fact they managed to whack off another letter in the post addressed to her still deceased son, one notifying Damian of the fact that he was no longer eligible to receive benefits from the Australian Government.
Of course, this incident only came to light when reported on a local community newspaper, The Carnridge Advertiser, as such and notes that this type of prolonged agony is nothing of a one off anomaly.
While Damian may still be dead and the twitching muscles no longer, Linda can find a sense of achievement in the fact that not only has she brought this act to light, but scored for herself full front page honours, complete with a very large photo, on the back of her dead son. It is a shame that he won't be able to admire his mother's accomplishment.
Written on Monday, 30 June 2003