La Voz de Galicia – November 16, 2025 →
Diego Rodríguez said that the urn “fulfills a social function, because there are more people in those circumstances who live alone.” The remark, published in this newspaper, had me thinking all week, because the urn that this social worker from Cerdido was referring to is the one that holds the ashes of a person from the municipality who died in 2021 and, since no one claimed them, remains in the municipal Social Services office. The article, which explained the procedure the office followed from the death to the present, and Diego Rodríguez’s words — “at least here he still has an identity, and in a common ossuary [in the cemetery] it wouldn’t even be recorded” — are still circling in my mind.
The consequences of loneliness are complex and depend on many factors, but that idea of the loss of identity that the social worker mentioned struck me as something truly profound. Because, as Rodríguez said, that urn of that nameless man represents a social reality we live with every day, and that loss of identity (which in some way is tied to loneliness) can be as cruel to the living as to the dead… You only have to look around to find someone who, due to life’s circumstances, whether by choice or not, ends up alone. And we, whether intentionally or not, whom do we make invisible? Whom do we choose to see?
I suppose that at this time of year, when the days are short and dark, when we spend more time alone, one tends to feel these things more intensely, the things that make us reflect on the meaning of life, especially when the world is so unsettled. But I must admit that in the words of that social worker from Cerdido, whom I only know from that news article, I found a glimmer of hope in the human condition…
