Sometimes I cry for the clumsiness of it, the awkwardness of not understanding how to move forward. Like everything in life, grief is learning to pedal a bicycle without training wheels. A precarious exercise, a teetering balance that is sometimes exhilarating for a pace, but mostly dangerous and scarring.

I am eight years old again, crying for my pain and pride, bleeding from different parts of me, angry that someone let go of my bike seat before I was ready.

[Photo.]