Like My Mother Before Me, I Have

While I Did A Lot Of Research, I Ended Up Feeling That The Best Way To Write About Grief Was To Describe It From The Inside Out - The Show The Strange Intensities That Come Along With It, The Peculiar Thoughts, The Longing For That Past - All The Strange Moments Of Thinking You Glimpse The Dead Person On The Street, Or In Your Dreams.

I Was Not Raised With Religion, And I Had No Faith Before My Mother Died. On The Other Hand, When She Died, I Did Not Immediately Feel She Was "gone." I Don't Believe She Is In Something Like Heaven, But I Also Feel That We Don't Understand Much About The Nature Of The Universe. So I Hold On To That Uncertainty, At Times.

It's All Too Easy When Talking About Female Gymnasts To Fall Into The Trap Of Infantilizing Them, Spending More Time Worrying More About Female Vulnerability Than We Do Celebrating Female Strength.

Loss Doesn't Feel Redeemable. But For Me One Consoling Aspect Is The Recognition That, In This At Least, None Of Us Is Different From Anyone Else: We All Lose Loved Ones; We All Face Our Own Death.

Nothing Prepared Me For The Loss Of My Mother. Even Knowing That She Would Die Did Not Prepare Me.