21 Grams, 2 pennies, and then some
There's a book I've not read by an author I don't know that is relevant to a story I can hardly believe:
Louisiana Hospital Clerk Targeted Dying in Identity-Theft Scheme
A hospital employee here sent her son text messages with the personal information of dying patients in a scheme to obtain credit cards in the patients' names once those patients died, authorities said. "This is about as low as you can stoop for a dollar," Sheriff Jack Strain said.
Strain said Stockdale, an emergency room clerk, allegedly sent her son text messages with names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of patients who were near death or had recently died. Ezell then used that information to submit credit card applications in the dead patients' names, using addresses of hurricane-damaged, unoccupied homes near his house in Slidell, authorities said.
Now about that book. It's entitled "Pennies, Off a Dead Man's Eyes." It was written by someone named Harlan Ellison and was first published in 1969. The description is interesting if not a tad bit dated:
If you steal the pennies off a dead man's eyes, you send him to hell, for he has no way to pay for his passage. Who is this woman who dares to take the pennies from a dead man's eyes? The foundling whom the dead man raised is going to find out, that's for sure. And he'll use all his abilities to do it.
Commentary
They say you can't take it with you. But I am not so sure. Maybe not the two copper coins that cover your eyelids, but possibly the sense of self-consciousness- the knowledge of who you were, the identity and name by which others knew and would remember you. That 21 grams that is the stuff of urban legend.
If you listen to the living talk about identity theft, they rarely emphasize the money or the things that were lost or the damage to their credit. Things, after all, can be replaced and credit can be repaired. What they emphasize is how violated, how personally compromised, they feel. That's not tangible, but it has weight of a kind. And it's not easily restored.
Whether headed to heaven or to hell, it must be equally distressing for a freshly disembodied soul. Seeing what is arguably his last and dearest possession stolen literally right from under his nose, before his body is even cold- this is an insult the dead should surely be spared.
This mother and son who metaphorically stole pennies from dead men's eyes should hope the legend about paying passage is not true. If it is, there are a lot stranded passengers who want to have words with them, words spoken by the still-to-soft voice of their conscience but blocked greed. How low can you stoop, indeed?
Tags: Identity Theft