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.

A mother, after all, is your entry into the world. She is the shell in which you divide and become a life. Waking up in a world without her is like waking up in a world without sky: unimaginable.

I believe in the importance of individuality, but in the midst of grief I also find myself wanting connection - wanting to be reminded that the sadness I feel is not just mine but ours.

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.

Be patient with yourself. Don't make the loss harder by thinking you should be a certain way, or have bounced back, etc.

Loss is so paradoxical: It is at once enormous and tiny.

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.