What's endlessly complicated in thinking about women's gymnastics is the way that vulnerability and power are threaded through the sport. Meghan O'Rourke complicateendlesslygymnastic Change image and share on social
A death from a long illness is very different from a sudden death. It gives you time to say goodbye and time to adjust to the idea that the beloved will not be with you anymore. Meghan O'Rourke adjustanymorebeloved Change image and share on social
I live to collect information, and I am also a perfectionist. Meghan O'Rourke collectinformationlive Change image and share on social
Nothing prepared me for the loss of my mother. Even knowing that she would die did not prepare me. Meghan O'Rourke dieknowloss Change image and share on social
To mourn is to wonder at the strangeness that grief is not written all over your face in bruised hieroglyphics. And it's also to feel, quite powerfully, that you're not allowed to descend into the deepest fathom of your grief - that to do so would be taboo somehow. Meghan O'Rourke allowbruisedeep share on social
My whole life, I had been taught to read and study, to seek understanding in knowledge of history, of cultures. Meghan O'Rourke culturehistoryknowledge Change image and share on social
Television has never known what to do with grief, which resists narrative: the dramas of grief are largely internal - for the bereaved, it is a chaotic, intense, episodic period, but the chaos is by and large subterranean, and easily appears static to the friendly onlooker who has absorbed the fact of loss and moved on. Meghan O'Rourke absorbappearbereave share on social
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. Meghan O'Rourke anchordeathfelt Change image and share on social
I think about my mother every day. But usually the thoughts are fleeting - she crosses my mind like a spring cardinal that flies past the edge of your eye: startling, luminous, lovely... gone. Meghan O'Rourke cardinalcrosseday Change image and share on social
But when my mother died, I found that I did not believe that she was gone. Meghan O'Rourke diefindmother Change image and share on social