Julia Weber

“While I wait for the police to come, I call Russell to confess what happened. He is my favorite person, the one who somehow sees me both as I want to be seen and as I actually am, the one whose belief in me over the years has been the most earned (he is not my parent), the most pure (he is not my boyfriend), and the most forgiving (he is my friend).”
― Sloane Crosley, Grief Is for People

“My delusion is not exactly aided by the "survivor" label, which itches like a rental costume. Surely, these people can't mean me. I did not experience what Russell experienced and live through it. I am, at best, nonsurvivor-adjacent. Then there's the group's custom of introducing yourself by stating your relationship to the deceased and how this person died (my best friend, with the rope, in the barn). This, too, seems not meant for me. If you never shared a bed with the object of your grief, impostor syndrome sets in. For all this mandolining of loss, friendships are practically left out of the equation. This is the one type of relationship experienced by everyone on the planet, but when it comes to suicide? Friendship takes the backseat. Even when everyone was alive for it, my relationship with Russell did not exist in a tidy space. So why must it now? Why must friends be indirectly excluded from the conversation so that when inclusion comes, it feels like benevolence?”
― Sloane Crosley, Grief Is for People