Grief Is for People

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death by suicide and mental illness.

Crosley passes the restaurant where she last saw Russell frequently. She begins a ritual of sitting across the street from the restaurant at night, studying the table where they sat through the window and having imaginary conversations with Russell. She dreams of him most nights—she dreads them but also longs for them because in the dreams, she gets to have conversations with him about his death.

Crosley has not spoken to Russell’s partner since their meeting in Connecticut. She does not know what has become of Russell’s ashes or what his partner plans to do with them. She does not want to bother his partner, knowing that his grief is enormous.

As the end of September arrives, Crosley is mired in her grief. She believes that not focusing her thoughts on Russell at all times is a betrayal to him. When she notices that her pulse often seems to be racing, she visits a cardiologist, who says that Crosley is experiencing panic attacks.

Unexpectedly, Crosley receives an email about her stolen jewelry from an audience member from a book reading that she gave, during which she spoke of the theft. Taken with her story, the man searched for the items on eBay and found two of them for sale. His email includes links to the sale pages. Crosley, knowing that the tiger eye ring was repaired, is certain that this piece, along with the amulet necklace for sale by the same seller, is hers because she can see the evidence of its repairs. She sets about purchasing the ring with the aim that the seller’s return address will lead her to the thief’s identity.

Crosley joins a virtual grief support group. At times, she becomes disgusted at the way the group only feeds her need to wallow in her grief. She often thinks often about one of Russell’s favorite books—a biography of Edie Sedgwick, who also died by suicide. She speculates that Russell’s suicide has something to do with Sedgwick’s. She briefly recalls how much Russell—who grew up in a lower-middle class family in New England—loved Hollywood culture, but not for its wealth. Crosley explains that he admired those who were eccentric and lived outside of the norm. She notes that the day before he died, Russell hung a framed cover of the Sedgwick biography, which was gifted to him by a colleague. She wonders how he could perform such an act and then end his life.

After locating two of the stolen items on eBay, Crosley contacts one of the detectives. She has purchased the ring and is having it mailed to the office of a friend. The detective tells her that nothing can be done and that there is not probable cause to go after the eBay seller. Crosley gets no help after contacting eBay, who insists that there is no way to prove that the item is the same one as hers, nor that it is a stolen item.

Crosley returns to the subject of Russell’s death and reveals that the night before she and Russell met for dinner, Russell and his partner had a fight. The subject of the fight was Russell’s accumulation of a massive number of possessions and his partner’s desire for Russell to downsize. During dinner, Russell told Crosley that before he sped off in his car in anger, his partner said, “[W]hatever happens, […] don’t kill yourself” (78). Crosley dwells on how angry that makes her toward Russell’s partner, and she muses on grief—she knows that she must try to find a way to resolve her grief, and yet she keeps returning to the restaurant to imagine herself having conversations with Russell to pretend that she can change what happened. She notes that she has been given several self-help books on grief, and though she initially does not intend to, she reads them all. She notes how, though their authors clearly try to differentiate their respective books from the other grief self-help books, none of the books succeed in being unique. She feels, too, that none of the authors have yet “gotten over” their own grief.

The tiger eye ring arrives. The return address indicates the location of the seller’s home, and Crosley looks it up on the internet. She talks with friends, trying to convince someone to stake out the house with her or find a way to catch the seller in the act of selling stolen goods. She considers how she can purchase back the necklace, which is priced very high. The detective repeatedly insists that there is no way to prove that the item is stolen. After some time, the necklace listing disappears from eBay.

Crosley acknowledges that even though she knows that recovering the missing jewelry will not bring Russell back, there are times when it helps to think this way. She notes that ancient Egyptian, Native American, and Greek cultures shared similar beliefs that the deceased can either take objects with them to the afterlife or return to retrieve objects that they left behind on Earth.

Crosley reads a study on suicide by a poet and critic whose death happens to occur shortly after Russell’s. She emphasizes that in suicide, death becomes a choice, and she argues that no one has the right to take that choice away from the deceased. She contemplates the psychological associations of various methods of suicide and wonders if she would feel differently about Russell’s death had he chosen another method.

She becomes fixated on retrieving the amulet necklace. Though she knows it is illogical, Crosley feels that it is important to recover the necklace for Russell’s sake—she cannot explain why she feels this way. Exactly six months from the date of the theft, she locates the necklace for sale by a different seller. Crosley devises a plan and recruits a friend to help. The friend pretends to be interested in buying another expensive item on the seller’s page—a Rolex watch—but wants to inspect it. The seller finally agrees and provides the address of a Manhattan building.

The friend heads to the address but quickly calls Crosley to explain that the situation was “shady” (92)—it was a small room where a man and a woman guarded a safe. Crosley insists on going to the location herself. Once inside the building, she makes her way to the suite number, passing what appears to be an empty restaurant. About 10 men are in the room, and one immediately asks who sent Crosley there. Feeling as though she is in a movie, Crosley explains that she is certain they have her stolen necklace. She recounts the story of how the necklace was stolen, stressing that she is prepared to buy the necklace back. The man tells Crosley to call him Dimitri and then insists the necklace is not there. He instructs Crosley to return the next day.

Crosley returns, finding only Dimitri and a woman there. Dimitri gives her the necklace, accepting no money for it and saying that the theft “shouldn’t have happened” (100). Crosley feels like she is on the verge of tears, unable to make sense of what has happened.