Grief Is for People

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2024

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Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Parts 4-5

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

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Themes

Methods of Working Through Grief

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

As Crosley faces the unexpected death of Russell, she takes various approaches to coping with her loss. Some of her actions follow in the traditional vein of dealing with a death: She attends support groups, reads self-help books, researches various cultural ideas about death, and attends Russell’s memorial service. The act of holding imaginary conversations with Russell becomes a ritual that Crosley clings to. Her visiting the restaurant where she saw Russell for the last time is an important element of this ritual: Staring through the window at the table where she and Russell sat is an attempt by Crosley to stop time and prevent Russell’s death from happening. This act showcases her struggle with acceptance, as she alternates between denial and a desire to hold onto memories that feel tangible. It is also instrumental in her search for missed warning signs that Russell was unhappy and preparing to die by suicide. The imaginary conversations with Russell that she holds shift in their meaning and purpose. At times, they are a way to deny that Russell is gone; at other times, they are an attempt to maintain a close connection to Russell.

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Crosley’s goal to recover her stolen jewelry quickly becomes bound up in her journey through grief and its stages. Her quest is bound up in multiple purposes. Psychologically, she wants to believe that by reclaiming the jewelry, she can prevent the theft from ever happening—an act akin to preventing a bad thing from happening (something she longs to do in regard to Russell, too). It is a way of righting a wrong and taking back control. Similarly, Crosley acknowledges that, on some level, she believes that getting the jewelry back will bring Russell back. She points out the ridiculousness of this, but the sense of purpose is helpful. This effort mirrors her broader attempt to negotiate control over a life seemingly defined by random, irreversible events. The jewelry becomes permanently linked to Russell, and its loss is a kind of failure on Crosley’s part, which deepens the significance of her throwing the chain into the ocean in Australia, effectively releasing her own guilt.

The act of making a memoir about Russell is a significant way of working through grief on a macro level. By painting both Russell and herself honestly and imperfectly, Crosley aims to confront her emotions in an authentic way. The memoir, too, provides her with the space and means to work through other significant life events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. She is unapologetic for the musings she offers up on suicide—significant given that some of her opinions are possibly offensive or contain the potential to be misconstrued. This unapologetic tone illustrates her evolving understanding of grief as a complex, nonlinear process, rather than something that can be resolved quickly or neatly. In recognizing the opportunity to make metaphors from her life, Crosley makes meaning out of her experience.

Social Expectations Involving Death and Death by Suicide

Throughout her experience coping with the death of her friend, Crosley is keenly aware of the expectations that others have of her, and she is troubled when her grief does not follow a clear and orderly trajectory. She clings to a state of denial for quite some time, pretending that Russell is still alive and carrying on conversations with him. Much of what is troubling to her about Russell’s death is its unexpected quality: She did not foresee that Russell had a desire to end his life, nor that he was in the process of planning his death. For these reasons—and for the often-held belief that suicide should be easy to prevent—much of the traditional consolations that one offers with death (such as the idea that the person is in a better place or that their pain has come to an) do not apply or are not helpful to mourners.

In some instances, Crosley resists participating in the traditional rituals that follow a death. For instance, she opposes a memorial service for Russell, certain that it would bring him great displeasure. In time, Crosley admits that her motivation for this is somewhat selfish, derived from the belief that she knew Russell better than others. This is indicative of the way in which Crosley tends to suffer privately, not wanting others to be privy to her grief or to invite them into her personal friendship with Russell by sharing her mourning with them. Part of the growth and change that the narrator undergoes by the end of the book is a comprehension that grief may not necessarily fully resolve itself or end—the final part of the memoir suggests that the mourning process may shift and change throughout the mourner’s life and that one may not ever entirely “accept” a death (despite what is suggested by the stages of grief).

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Importantly, death by suicide remains largely taboo, and its motivations are often misunderstood. Those who die by suicide, or consider dying by suicide, are sometimes ridiculed or belittled. Depression and other mental health disorders remain stigmatized in some circles, and thus Crosley’s decision to confront her friend’s suicide is risky. Further, Crosley considers positions, at times, that will be regarded as controversial. For instance, she maintains the position that to end his life was a choice that Russell rightfully possessed and that this choice was not one that another person should have been allowed to make for him. These assertions are key to the text, offering unique, open-minded perceptions of personal autonomy in making choices about death.

Making Meaning of Trauma

At the onset of the book, Crosley establishes a parallel between the theft of her jewelry and the sudden death of her friend Russell. Though the events are not directly related, Crosley is unable to separate one from the other. Both events, then, become means to understanding the other event and how she copes with loss. Crosley notes surface-level reminders of Russell that are infused in some of the pieces of jewelry: He noted the presence of her unique ring when she met him for the first time for a job interview. Likewise, the cabinet where Crosley stored the jewelry—which is damaged during the burglary—is linked to Russell since he encouraged Crosley to buy it from a flea market that they visited together. Thus, the jewelry is indirectly infused with a link to Russell. This connection suggests Crosley’s inclination to create meaning from objects as a way to anchor herself in the chaotic aftermath of loss. For this reason, Crosley believes that the jewelry being stolen should have been a warning to her that Russell’s death was eminent (though she admits that this thinking is not logical and, instead, shaped by the emotions she experiences while coping with Russell’s absence). The link, then, is symbolic of Crosley’s desire for the world to operate in terms of logical and predictable cause and effect.

Much of what is upsetting to Crosley, as revealed by her wrestling with both events, is the seeming randomness of them and the lack of agency she feels. When the jewelry is stolen, she berates herself with an “if only” mantra, citing the ways she could have and should have prevented the event and searching for evidence of why she, in particular, was the victim of a theft. Similarly, in the aftermath of Russell’s death, her immediate inclination is to search for warning signs that forecast Russell’s contemplation of suicide. Her fixation on prevention highlights her struggle to reconcile the limits of human agency with her yearning for clarity and control. Because there is a perpetrator to blame for the burglary, she wants, too, for there to be a source to blame for Russell’s death, and this, in the absence of the true villain, takes the form of Crosley herself, as she is certain that she should have been able to prevent Russell’s death.

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On a macro scale, the writing of a memoir is a means for Crosley to process and work through the trauma that she experiences. As time passes, the significance of Russell’s death gradually surpasses that of the loss of the jewelry. She recognizes that the theft is a metaphor for the larger loss of Russell. This evolution demonstrates the profound emotional resonance of grief, as Crosley begins to understand the ways that small and large losses intertwine in shaping her identity.