I wasn't prepared for the fact that grief is so unpredictable. It wasn't just sadness, and it wasn't linear. Somehow I'd thought that the first days would be the worst and then it would get steadily better - like getting over the flu. That's not how it was.

If the condition of grief is nearly universal, its transactions are exquisitely personal.

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

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

One of the grubby truths about a loss is that you don't just mourn the dead person, you mourn the person you got to be when the lost one was alive. This loss might even be what affects you the most.

I wasn't prepared for the fact that grief is so unpredictable. It wasn't just sadness, and it wasn't linear. Somehow I'd thought that the first days would be the worst and then it would get steadily better - like getting over the flu. That's not how it was.

A mother is the portal by which you enter the world.