Nothing prepared me for the loss of my mother. Even knowing that she would die did not prepare me.

What's endlessly complicated in thinking about women's gymnastics is the way that vulnerability and power are threaded through the sport.

A mother is a story with no beginning. That is what defines her.

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.

There are many kinds of loss embedded in a loss - the loss of the person, and the loss of the self you got to be with that person. And the seeming loss of the past, which now feels forever out of reach.

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.

Suddenly it was fall, the season of death, the anniversary of things-going-to-hell.