More Dead Thoughts
Nine years ago today, Matt Russo was murdered and I’m still here
Matt Russo was murdered by his mother at Red Lobster, who then took her own life on this day in 2011. Russo and I had lived together at St. Vincent College in Latrobe for three semesters up to that point. And I’m still here.
After his death, a friend took the above image and wrote a poem across the top, cropping me out. I’m on the right. That old post with the poem was popular in our circle, among those close to Russo — both then and every annum when I see it shared again. The absence stings. Yet, nine years on, it’s a reminder that our grief is social. Roommate though I was, it was never “my tragedy,” even if I would have liked it to be.
This year, the isolation of COVID-19 and living alone in the desert convinced me that it was time to give up the selfishness in my heart over the above picture. I have, in 2020, been above all surprised that I’m still here — not that I didn’t die back with Russo or to the pandemic— but that my immature college-self remains, clinging to the vestiges of unreleased grief. So I release it today. I made one myself — not to “reclaim” the photo, but to finally participate in a community that knew better how to grieve properly days removed from the murder than I have in nine years.
I am still uncertain what Medium is supposed to be, but I hope that others too find the catharsis that may come from writing here.
