People ca be relied on up to the point they can handle. You can't expect someone who is barely getting by on an hourly job for example to take off work for some emergency or for someone living with a roommate to take you in without getting the roommates ok. There are plenty of people that I know that would love to help me in a variety of ways that are just not really feasible. I know there are friends I have had and we live in different states and such that likely remember me fondly as I do them. Heck I even have a brother not to far away and we help each other some but we both are married and our first repsonsibility is to our spouse and family. We do what we can. But yeah in the end we mostly die alone as others go before or after us. If we don't die alone its usually a pretty horrible thing.