After a friend hadn’t been able to contact 55-year-old Roger Perkins for days, the friend finally asked police to check on him. Inside Perkins’ home — which is about a mile from where I live in Leeds, Ala. — they found him dead, apparently from natural causes. He was last known to be alive sometime in March. The coroner’s office is seeking family members to whom his body can be released. Stories such as this one are chilling to me, because I also live alone and have no family. The fact that this story is about someone who lived so close to me makes it seem especially real. I just wonder if his outcome might have been different if he had lived with someone who could have called for help. Nobody needs to die alone — and I’m not so sure that living alone is such a good idea. Everybody needs to be with someone who loves him.