There is always tension in women's gymnastics between athleticism, grace, performance, and eros.

For sure, the funeral industry seems intensely cynical to me and I don't think it is HELPING people mourn.

What had happened still seemed implausible. A person was present your entire life, and then one day she disappeared and never came back. It resisted belief.

Like my mother before me, I have always been a good speller.

My whole life, I had been taught to read and study, to seek understanding in knowledge of history, of cultures.

The truth is, I need to experience my mother's presence in the world around me and not just in my head.

One word I had throughout the first year and a half of my mother's death was 'unmoored.' I felt that I had no anchor, that I had no home in the world.